I watched The Matrix again over the long weekend, and I was pleasantly surprised by how well it holds up. Here are some thoughts that popped up all these years later:
The CG/compositing still looks good for the most part. Only a handful of scenes look clunky to my modern eyes. Elevator scene: I’m talking about you.
I had forgotten how much of a Hong Kong flick this is. The Wachowskis clearly love those movies.
People loved those spring-loaded phones at the time, and I bet that basic concept will cycle into the popular imagination on the reg.
My girlfriend was unimpressed at how sloppy the Neo/Trinity love story was, but it didn’t register to me. In retrospect, just a few more lines sprinkled throughout the middle of the movie would make it more believable.
Putting myself into the mindset of someone seeing this in 1999, it’s easy to see why it was so influential. It’s non-stop style, so you walk out of the movie with like 10 incredible moments running through your mind.
I didn’t remember how pretty the cinematography was. Hell, I’d hang stills from this movie on my wall.
The way Cypher’s betrayal unfurls is weird. I wonder if the steak scene was always meant to be placed at that point in the story.
The cast is incredible, and I wish that they gave Carrie-Anne Moss more stuff to do.
I wrote a little bit about the beginning of Season 2 last year, but I was mostly pointing to reviews and talking tech. I’ve stuck with the season though, and I recently wrapped up the third episode. Here’s what I think about it so far (with some minor spoilers):
I’m glad the team decided to address some of the difficulties of being Hispanic/Latinx in the United States, but it feels like they missed an opportunity by not highlighting undocumented characters.
They flirted with the 2016 election, but then skirted around it. Sean is obviously preoccupied, but it feels like a cop out nonetheless.
I was crushed that we didn’t get to see Sean live life as an awkward regular-ass teen at the party before shit went down.
Daniel is definitely a little shit, and he’s hard to like sometimes. Which is to say: Daniel is written both realistically and successfully (for the most part).
The way they’ve dealt with nudity, sex, sexuality, and relationship non-conformity is rad as hell so far.
Considering how much they beat you over the head with “YOUR CHOICES MATTER,” they sure are clunky about railroading you into events even when you’ve actively made decisions to avoid that exact outcome. (Karen’s room, the end of S2E03, etc.)
The dialog has been massively improved this season. Much of what tumbled out of Max’s mouth in Season 1 made me nauseated, and that’s entirely gone now. I assume that’s thanks to notes and punch-up from some of the folks from Fullbright, but I can’t say for certain.
As this season has played out, and the LIS comic series has taken off, I’ve grown to understand something about myself: I’m just sick and tired of having bad things happen to the fake people I like. That’s going to be a real challenge going forward.
Today was my last day freelancing at Ziff, and I’m more than a little mournful. It’s been nearly seven years I’ve written for ExtremeTech, and the people I met along the way were fantastic.
In some capacity or another, I’ve been writing professionally my entire adulthood, and even before then. Now, I’m headed over to work a full-time commerce gig, so my time for writing about games and tech will be extremely limited. It’s good news, and I left on the best of terms, but change is always hard.
Still, I hope that I’ll be able to pop in here and write about the games that really deserve to be discussed.
Consoles were once exclusively home to big-budget full-price games, but today it's different. The Xbox One has plenty of excellent free-to-play games; here are our favorites.
The team behind the Mortal Kombat series has been cranking out well-liked fighters on the regular for nearly 30 years now, and Mortal Kombat 11 might be their best game to date with the exception of its ugly lootbox implementation.
With the exception of the divisive 2013 reboot by western developer Ninja Theory, Devil May Cry diehards haven't received much love from Capcom since 2008. But with this year's proper numbered sequel, the father of modern character action games is back in full force.
Anthem has many problems, but some might be more serious than we initially thought. Beyond the wonky pacing and server hiccups, BioWare's latest game might be contributing to some small number of PS4s becoming inoperable.
Square Enix has established a pattern: Announce too early, slog through development hell, and then drag a good game across the finish line with some technical hiccups along the way. And by most accounts, that's exactly what happened to Kingdom Hearts III.
A wide selection of existing titles throughout the PS4's back catalog have received excellent PS4 Pro-enhanced patches, and that's on top of new games that are Pro-optimized at launch. From relatively small indies to beloved Sony exclusives and third-party bestsellers, there's plenty of high-res enjoyment to be had for little cash.
Bandai Namco hasn't exactly been the best steward of the Ace Combat series. After the somewhat controversial mainline installment early in the Xbox 360's lifespan, we've only had spin-offs and experiments to tide us over. But after a decade of thumb-twiddling, arcade flight enthusiasts finally have something to crow about with Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown.
As the new year begins to sink in, let's pump the brakes, and highlight a few standout games from 2018. We were pleasantly surprised to have yet another year squeezed full of sensational games, so trimming down the list to 10 technically impressive games was a true challenge.
After the knockout 2017 release schedule, many of us thought 2018 would be a quiet year of recovery. Instead, it was stuffed with far too many excellent games for any one person to play. Some games stood head and shoulders above the competition though, and we want to take a moment to praise our most beloved titles.
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