amir-50168 Reviews

Uncharted: The Lost Legacy (2017 Video Game)

Solid game, but even more warning signs then Uncharted 4

[7/10 · 26 February 2024]

There isn't much to say about the gameplay in my opinion. It's still very solid and fun all be it a bit repetitive. It's nice to see Chloe back as she was one of my favorite characters in the series and her voice actress just does a superb job.

My issue is something that came over from Uncharted 4 and that being Sam and Nadine. Sam really didn't need to be there and I would have much more preferred to see Cutter or maybe even Sully.

Sam is just a bland character with no likable traits whatsoever and I don't know if this was on purpose or not. But Nadine Ross takes the cake of being completely irritating. First of all you just know that we are supposed to like her and feel sympathy towards her because she lost her mercenary group to another guy. And thank you Naughty Dog for reminding us player that she is indeed a woman and strong (comically strong unless it's in a boss fight) and independent. But that's nothing new ! Both Chloe and Elaine are also strong in their own way and WAY more likable. And in this game where we have to spend the majority of time with Nadine the voice acting just comes back into focus for me. Nadine apparently can't decide whether she wants to sound like a British royalist from The Crown or have this weird whispery voice that just tries so hard to sound tough and cool. It's very jarring to listen to.

Obviously when we get to meet Sam we are reminded that Nate and him tried to kill her so she is mad at them still. I am sorry but do we just ignore the amount of times she tried to kill them and also lock them in a burning ship AFTER Nate saved her live ?

But I get it she is cool and independent and don't need no man.

On a side not I just want to point out how funny it is that Nadine is voiced by a white woman. Not because its terrible or anything but knowing Naughty Dog and Neil Druckmans politics it's funny because you would think they would be all over this if it was done by someone else. Plus Laura Bailey didn't even do a good job although I don't know if that was the direction she was given by the producers.

I hope they don't do another Uncharted. Ever since Amy Henning was let go the story direction just went all over the place.

Again ironic seeing as they advocate strong women and then fire the woman that made Uncharted great.

Uncharted 4: A Thief's End (2016 Video Game)

Great game that is held back from being truly awesome by weird narrative decisions and slow pacing

[8/10 · 26 February 2024]

So first of all I played all three games prior to this and while I had my frustrations with them I still overall enjoyed them and the sense of an Indiana Jones like story as a game.

The fourth game improved massively in my opinion on the gameplay. It all feels so much smoother and the action sequences aren't as frustrating as previously.

Graphics are incredible and the animations and environments look great. This game has got a lot of things going for it.

My biggest issue with the game is its story and slow pacing and some weird narrative decisions.

First of all Nate's brother just comes out of nowhere and even though he thought he was dead it makes no sense that he didn't even mention him.

Sam himself is an okay character I guess but not memorable like other characters in the series like Sully, Chloe or even Cutter.

Now I have to mention the ultimate comical character that is Nadine Ross...What were they going for here ?

A Mary Sue that kicks Nathan's ass at every opportunity even though Nathan fought of so many bigger opponents before and even faced supernatural enemies. But what really annoys me about this character is that we are supposed to like her !

There is a scene where Sam has the opportunity to kill her and Nate saves her and at the end of the game she thanks him by locking him up in a burning ship ! What a great character. And also on that note I have to talk about the voice acting here. She can't decide if she is having a British accent or just speaks without one and then just does this weird whispery voice that tries WAY too hard to sound tough and cool.

Of course in Hindsight knowing why this character was put in makes a lot of sense...Seeing how the other franchise TLOU is turning out now just goes to show that they still go down this path.

So in conclusion Uncharted 4 is a good game but it already had all the warning signs and I don't think they should continue this series at all.

But then again they are too busy milking TLOU 1 & 2 so I don't know if they even have plans for another Uncharted or god forbid a completely new IP.

Bosch: Legacy (2022– )

Very disappointing !

[5/10 · 12 December 2023]

I really loved Bosch ! Seasons 1-6 were superb. Season 7 was a bit of a letdown, but I was very excited about Bosch as a private investigator. The series already had this neo-noir feel to it and I thought it would be even more present now. Unfortunately I couldn't have been more wrong. I stopped after episode 6. This just felt like such a cheap rip off and that's funny considering its basically the same people involved.

The two main cases are so uninteresting, cliched and predictable and don't even get me started on Maddie's side story as a rookie cop. I was rolling my eyes constantly.

It's really a shame because I like Titus Welliver in this role, but the writing and story just let this whole series down.

My recommendation to every Bosch fan is too just skip this one !

The Walking Dead (2010–2022)

Cheap tricks to keep you watching

[3/10 · 2 April 2023]

I watched five seasons of this show before I stopped.

The first season was really good. It was paced perfectly and intriguing in its story.

Then season 2 happened.... What an awful way to follow up on a really good first season. The pacing is awful, the characters are just constantly irritated with each other and the production value just nosedived.

To keep the viewers watching they employed a clever trick. Almost every episode ends on some sort of cliffhanger wich makes you want to continue because you want to know what happens next... nevermind that the rest of the episodes was a total snoozefest.

Season 3 and 4 were better but still had the same problems. Season 5 was it for me. It started of fairly interesting but that only lasted for like 2 episodes.

The rest was the same old boring song.

How this show got to so many seasons is an absolute mystery to me.

The Last of Us (2023– )

Criminally overrated

[1/10 · 22 March 2023]

I am not the biggest fan of the original game so I was a bit more open minded when this series came out.

I don't understand all these 10 and 9 ratings. It's a okay show at best. Lots of filler and terrible pacing. Ellie is incredibly annoying and Joel is bland af.

I kind of expected that the infected weren't really going to be a big part of this show because this show goes the not so subtle road of "ThE HUmAnS ARe ThE REal MoNStErS". But the amount of time wasted on unnecessary side plots that ultimately add nothing to the overall story was baffling.

I can only explain all these hyper positive reviews with a standard that got lowered so much because of all these mediocre shows we got over the last years.

But seriously this is just "The walking dead" with a higher budget and more virtue signaling. To all those that actually want to continue this show: Have fun with season 2 and everyone's favorite golf pro.

Lost (2004–2010)

Starts off really promising but gets worse and worse

[5/10 · 18 October 2022]

The first season was pretty entertaining and good. The mystery that is build up works well and makes you want to find out more. The second season goes deeper and also adds more interesting things.

The third season is still okay although some of the mystery gets a lackluster payoff.

Season 4 is where it starts to get really bad and seasons 5 and 6 continue that trend.

It's typical JJ Abrams mystery box bs.

The plot gets more and more convoluted and complicated. He probably thought he was being smart.

But it just incredibly frustrating to watch, especially that ending.

It made no sense at all and to me it seemed like he just made something up and left it ambiguous, because he had no idea what to do anymore.

Promising start but terrible since the fourth season.

Cyberpunk: Edgerunners (2022)

Standards are really low nowadays

[3/10 · 17 October 2022]

I checked this anime out after all the buzz it created.

A lot of good reviews and good PR for the game.

I was curious and I watched it. It's not good.

Not even mediocre it's just bad.

You got your stereotypical anime protagonist who of course has to be a frickin 17 year old.

Why can't it be a mature character ? The world of cyberpunk would be perfect for a protagonist like that.

But no they have to check all the anime cliches.

The story is mediocre at best and the animation is weird and inconsistent.

At times it looks pretty good and at other times it looks like a cheap selfmade cartoon from YouTube in 2010.

Everyone says the ending is so emotional but it's just your standard melodramatic anime nonsense.

I feel like the standards in general are so low that people actually consider this to be a good anime.

No wonder the entertainment industry sucks.

Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag (2013 Video Game)

Lots of busy work and extremely repetitive

[4/10 · 16 July 2022]

I had high hopes for this game with all the praise it got. Unfortunately I am very disappointed. Most of the missions are either tail someone on land or on a boat. Naval combat is definitely better than in AC 3 but still very sluggish. The story is extremely uninteresting and the present story doesn't even deserve mentioning.

Upgrading health and your ship requires you to hunt animals or sink ships. This gets very boring very fast and harms the game.

The stealth sections are okay most of the time. But the naval mission are tedious.

Ubisoft should have just made a pirate game and let AC rest but I understand why they didn't.

Better than AC3 but not much.

The Boys (2019– )

It gets repetitive

[5/10 · 9 July 2022]

Season 1 was great Season 2 was okay and Season 3 was just kind of boring.

They just use the same plot again "We have stop Homelander" but this time filled with filler. The frenchy subplot was predictable. The whole Soldier Boy character was underused. And for crying out loud why did they have to turn Homelander into a "Superhero-Trump" ? Subtle this is ain't. Homelander was always the most interesting character and this made him more boring. And they probably do the same plot in season 4. The Head-Popper was also a promising character but underused. Instead we got lame drama between hughie and Annie.

Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021)

Nostalgia overload... and not much more

[5/10 · 25 June 2022]

Full disclosure I loved seeing Tobey Maguire, Willem Dafoe and Alfred Molina back on the big screen.

The problem is that it has nothing else going for it.

I always thought Tim Holland was great choice and he is doing a good job. Unfortunately the MCU degraded Spider-Man to Iron-Boy.

I don't care about any of the supporting cast. I never liked the young Aunt May. Ned (comic relief) and MJ ( too cool for school) are too one dimensional.

The plot just exists so we can have this nostalgia festival which is pretty entertaining at times. It just comes of like a fan film with the meme references.

Dexter: New Blood (2021–2022)

This redeemed Season 8

[5/10 · 30 May 2022]

I had high hopes for this season. But it was terrible.

The plot was stupid and Dexter was acting so much out of character. The side characters were bland. With one negative exception Molly Park the most annoying character ever in Dexter.

I always felt Season 8 ending wasn't bad. It was just what led to it that wasn't great.

This season is dumbly written and it was a waste of Michael C. Hall and the actor who played Kurt Caldwell.

Screw Dexter New Blood.

Goliath (2016–2021)

Season 1 Great Season 2 Okay Season 3 Aweful

[6/10 · 10 March 2022]

I don't know why they decided to go the artsy route with the third season but it didn't work. The pacing is terrible. Season 3 was so Bad that it ruined the series. I tried watching season 4 but it was more of the same. Lengthy dream sequences that just slowed the plot down for no reason other than the creators trying to be a poor man's David Lynch.

Too bad because I really liked the first 2 seasons because it kept me interested in the story and characters. Something that season 3 completely fails to do. Screw the casino, screw the artsy farts bullcrap and the completely uninteresting antagonists.

Star Wars: The Rise Of Skywalker (2019)

What the hell ?

[1/10 · 8 February 2022]

I laughed out loud when I read the text crawl at the Beginn because I saw it leaked before and thought it was fake because it sounded so stupid.

This is what happens when you don't plan your trilogy and just do whatever you think might be popular. Bringing back Palpatine was the worst decision ever. It completely undermines the entire OG Trilogy. And their explanation that he survived somehow must have been a joke !

Disney Star Wars is creatively bankrupt and they should just stop doing anything with it anymore.

They sucked all the fun and joy out of Star Wars in just a few years.

Screw Disney and screw the Sequel Trilogy !

Blade Runner 2049 (2017)

This movie is long and terrible

[1/10 · 8 February 2022]

This movie is so terrible and not only compared to the original but just generally bad.

So much runtime and so little happening.

Screw this movie.

I actually like Denis Vileneuve movies like Prisoners, Sicario, Enemy or arrival. But this was just awful.

It's visually as bland as the protagonist. At no point did I care what was even happening. And why did they have to drag Harrison Ford into this mess ?

I am actually glad this movie flopped so we will be spared any more sequels.

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)

Fanservice and nothing more

[4/10 · 8 February 2022]

While the action is nice to watch the movie fails at being interesting at all.

It relies so much on Fanservice that it's embarrassing.

There is no substance at all just hey remember this from the original trilogy ?

30 Rock (2006–2013)

Where is the funny ?

[3/10 · 7 February 2022]

I watched all seven seasons recently. My girlfriend recommended it to me and I heard good things about it. But I don't get it. How did this show get such a good rating ?

I will start with the positives: Alec Baldwin is a good actor ( no matter what one may think of him personally) and he really held up the show as Jack. His lines weren't always the best or most subtle (which goes for every character on the show) but his performance made up for it.

Dr. Spaceman didn't have the most screentime but when he was on it was always funny, because of his dry delivery.

A lot of the other side characters like Frank, Toofer, Pete or the Entourage of Tracy Jordan where also mostly fun. Problem for me was that they were underused. Sometimes it felt that the writers forgot about them.

Now the negatives....: So the show starts off pretty promising and even funny. Obviously Tina Fey got a lot of Celebrities and even Politicians with guest appearances.

First of all the jokes:

In this show you have the someone says something weird and someone else reacts perplexed kind of joke. This type of comedy is fine when it's just one or two characters that make these. But here everyone does this and apparently the producers found it so funny, that it is in every episode.

Every character is so absurd and weird but in an obnoxious way. Liz Lemon (Tina Fey) is so unlikable and unrelatable. It's obvious she was going for quirky and nerdy but comes of as annoying, judgmental and completely unlikable.

The guest appearances also didn't work that well. You can have all the big name actors you want but they still didn't make it funny.

The plotlines are cliched and tired.

And nothing in the writing is clever at all, but you feel that they thought so.

How this show got so many awards is puzzling to me.

I really wanted to like this show, but it just isn't good !

The Umbrella Academy (2019–2024)

Overrated but not terrible

[4/10 · 3 June 2021]

My girlfriend is a fan of this series and wanted to watch it with me.

I went into it with an open mind and watched both seasons.

After watching them I think that this series is brutaly overrated.

NOT terrible or unwatchable.

I will start with the things I enjoyed:

1. Nr.5 was by far the best character and the actor did a great job porttraying him.

2. Hazels character arc in the first season was actually pretty solid and i liked it.

3. The potential of the lore seems very interesting.

4. When the main characters work all together you get some nice and funny action scenes and banter (unfortunately that doesn´t happen too much)

NOW the things i didn´t enjoy:

1. The pacing and overall storytelling was terrible and clunky.

2. The characters spend a lot of time whining about things that we didn´t see or just get told in the first five episodes.

3. The lack of a real compelling villain.

4. That they basically use the same story for both seasons.

5. That every single action scene is accompanied by a pop song.

6. The inevitable political pandering in season two 7. Very little character development.

8. That the plot sometimes just happens because the characters are stupid (Luther) 9. Too much focus on teenage-drama-level plotlines.

It was a frustating series to watch because there is potential for this to be very good in the few moments it shines.

I hope it gets better but i am not betting on it.

To me its fascinating that this series is so highly rated, because the way they present the story is so clunky and incoherent.

But I dont hate it and it has its moments.

Brooklyn Nine-Nine (2013–2021)

Funny but its charm wears off after season 3

[6/10 · 3 June 2021]

When I first watched Brooklyn 99 i loved it. The characters were likeable and quirky. Most of the jokes landed and it had nice focus on comedy and not too much drama (as some comedy shows tend to).

However after the third season the novelty has worn off and you get a lot typical plot points that seem to be mandatory for example the inevitable wedding between Jake and Amy.

Certain character tropes like rosas "i am a coldhearted badass", doyles obsession with jake, terrys yoghurt love etc. Were fun in the beginning but after a while it gets annoying.

But my biggest issues with the later seasons is that they of course had to do certain politically charged episodes which were in my opinion mishandled.

The racist cop episode was very weird in its tone because it depicts a serious topic in a show that is normally very lighthearted. I know that this episode got some awards but I thought it was very awkward to watch. An example is the scene where Terry goes to see Captain Holt to ask for advice about the racist cop. Holt has guests and of them is very annoying and during the conversation Holt keeps shouting at her to be quiet when she interrupts. Its awkward because it is very clear they tried to make this very serious scene not too serious. The problem in my opinion was that it wasn´t handled very well because they didn´t achieve comedy or a serious emotional scene with this.

I just thought this episode was very weird in its tone and jokes.

Later on there is an episode with a metoo-like case which was also very awkward and strange in the context of the series.

And the other regular episodes just started slowly losing their wittiness and fun beginning with season 4.

I think that is a shame because i absolutely loved the first three seasons.

I would still recommend them.