Movie Review: Asterix: The Secret of the Magic Potion

The second movie I went to see last Sunday. The Asterix franchise and me, we go way back. I was introduced to it fairly young, as my father is also a huge fan. In fact, he's a fan not only of this series, but also of Lucky Luke, another Franco-Belgian comic book series. A TV channel in my province likes to air the films from these two franchises (as well as Tintin) throughout December. I've seen every Asterix movie (not an achievement, there's only ten) and own four on DVD; as for the comic books, I lost track of how many I own. I don't have them all, but I do buy every new entry in the series when it comes out. It's usually a present for my dad. The Asterix franchise may be among the ones that give me the biggest feeling of nostalgia.

This movie was releaed in Europe in December 2018, we only got it in February on the other side of the ocean. I, of couse, went to see it in theaters with my father. No way we were going to miss that.

The Secret of the Magic Potion is less of an Asterix or Obelix movie. It actually seems to focus more on Getafix, the Gaul village's druid, the creator of the magic potion that gives the villagers that incredible strength that allows them to fend off the Roman invaders. It's nice to have a day in the limelight for other characters in the series sometimes. Getafix tends to be put aside, as he's usually shown with only two main traits: He's the wise old man of the village, and he makes the potion. This movie gives him a lot more personality than we usually see.

This film wastes no time, either, in showing the main conflict. While gathering ingredients in the forest, after rescuing a baby bird, Getafix falls off a tree. Now healing from a broken foot, he realizes his own mortality. After a few days, he realizes that he won't be there forever to make the magic potion for the village, and so he decides to go on a quest to find a worthy successor to whom he'll teach the recipe for the potion. Asterix and Obelix go with him, and Pectine, a young gadgeteer girl from the village, comes along after hiding in a small cauldron they were bringing with them.

Movie Review: The LEGO Movie 2: The Second Part

First off, quick update on the upcoming game reviews. I have two finished, one more than halfway done, and two that still have to be started. I will try to get them done by March, but I can't make much in the way of promises; the past week had the worst winter weather I've ever seen and following an unpleasant bumper-to-snowpile meetup, my car needs repairs and I can feel my wallet dying. So, as you can guess, reviews aren't exactly the biggest thing on my mind at the moment. However, I am still doing my best, and I'll try to have some stuff ready soon-ish. And hey, not all's grim, I could spare a couple bucks on the side to go see a movie in theaters.

The first of those two is The LEGO Movie 2: The Second Part. I'll try to avoid spoilers as much as possible, yet again, since the film is still in theaters. However! The plot of this one hinges heavily on the plot of the original LEGO Movie, including the twist. It's referenced (more like replayed) in the very first minutes, so I HEAVILY recommend you watchg the first film if you haven't seen it before seeing this one.

(By the way, Warner Brothers did an awesome thing with promotion for this film, making the first movie available on YouTube for a full day last year, albeit intercut with ads for the sequel. I kinda wished that became a common thing in promotions, especially for sequels to films that were released a few years prior.)

The plot begins after the alien invasion of the DUPLO at the end of the first movie (don't worry, that wasn't the plot twist of that one). Five years have passed since, and Bricksburg has turned into an apocalyptic, Blatant-Mad-Max-Ripoff wasteland. The aliens kept stealing away every cute thing they could get their hands on, so the LEGO minifigs adapted their world to have nothing cute about it anymore. It's a gloomy desert of violence and edge that you could cut yourself on. In spite of all that, Emmet is still his jolly self, keeping his seemingly-unbreakable positivity even as everybody around him brood and tatto themselves with badass imagery. Even Lucy, the girl Emmet hooked up with by the end of the first film, thinks an awful lot about war and pain lately.

Delay for a buffer

Hello there. I have decided to delay the upcoming reviews for a while, until I have built a satisfying buffer of reviews that are completed.

I played a lot of games during one week of December, and I haven't recorded those playthroughs, so for a lot of future Steam Packs I'll need to replay these games and record myself.

As a reminder, Google+ is shutting down soon, so if you want to keep up with the blog, feel free to join the official Discord server.

EDIT: The delay is going to be longer than planned after all. Sorry about that.

Octodad: Dadliest Catch

I cannot condone the events of this game. I cannot side with the dissimulation, the camouflage of non-humans among us.

That's the most squidlike human I
have ever seen.

On January 30th, 2014, Young Horses brought to us Octodad: Dadliest Catch, the second Octodad game (I haven’t played the first). How to accurately describe this… well, it’s a family father going about his day, supporting his wife and kids, and following them around. You could be excused for thinking that this guy is normal, if a bit kooky. He speaks weirdly, and yet everyone understands him. Maybe he’s foreign and he has an accent? And his way to walk around…. So weird! But, let’s not make fun of him, maybe he has a physical disability. And that mustache looks bizarrely fleshy and squishy. But hey, who knows this man’s story, right? Asking would be rude. He almost got me fooled, too! But then I remembered: The game’s called Octodad, and the store page spoils that detail immediately.

This is an octopus hidden among us! How unacceptable! And he fooled a woman for ten years, even married her – that’s the very first level! Scandalous! This is also where you get to experience the controls.

That might not seem so complicated.
Good luck mastering this, though.

He makes a mess everywhere he goes. Even the clumsiest
anime girl isn't nearly that bad.

See, Octodad: Dadliest Catch is one of those games on Steam where the controls are poor on purpose; after all, you can’t have a squid walk on four tentacles without constantly losing balance! Everything in this game is done through the mouse. Octodad’s controls are split between Walk Mode and Interact Mode. In Walk Mode, each leg made of two tentacles is a button of the mouse. Move the mouse around to move Octodad, left click for the left leg, right click for the right leg, so on. In Interact Mode, you are in control of one of his hand-tacles, and move it around. The left button is used to grab an item or let go of it (and you can walk around while holding items), while you must press and hold the right button to change the height of Octodad’s tentacle, so you can grab items either close to the floor or located higher. The middle button on the mouse is used to switch between both modes.