Sunday 30 April 2017

Opinion Piece (?): Star Wars solo film ideas

The misadventures of Happy Home Designer, will return next week, as I want to do this post, and I don't post on a Saturday anymore.

With the financial success of Rogue One, that means we're getting even more solo movies based in the Star Wars universe. But, who could be good characters to hold up an entire movie? Well, while I don't know much about Legends, I know quite a few characters, both in cannon and in legends, that could make for some interesting movies. Care to find out who?

I should note, while these are numbered, they aren't in an order of "who I want to see more". Like I said, this is an ideas post, to see if anyone else is interested. None of these are fleshed out, as they all focus on a general idea you could do for a story with these characters.

Saturday 29 April 2017

Update: Change of Pace

               You're probably wonder why there is no Mediaton uploaded this week. That's because I'm going to change the format to align with my personal schedule. Every Mediaton journal is going to happen every other week now, and the format will be changed from days to general events. 
               
               Although, the Saturdays without Mediaton journals are not going to be barren. I will put up a short opinion piece every other Saturday, or maybe even a review! I hope you keep checking back on this site for new content as I check back on the residents of Mediaton. I'm not the only one here making content either, you can also read up on Blaster's misadventures in Happy Home Designer among other reviews.

               See you soon! -keybug55 (Marissa)

Wednesday 26 April 2017

Rogue One, A Star Wars Story: If Rebels is 3.5, then would this be 3.8?

Oh know, we're going Kingdom Hearts levels of procrastination, even though Episode 4's been a thing for 40 years! This is going to be a pain once Forces of Destiny comes out. And yes I have seen the new Last Jedi trailer, I was never going to beat the Star Wars fans on youtube that have independently analyzed every piece of that trailer.

If Disney wanted to make Star Wars a yearly release schedule, then episode 7-9 alone wasn't going to cut it. They planned to make solo films based on other points in the Star Wars mythos and that plan relied on the success of today's subject, which from here on out I'll be referring to as just Rogue One. Encase you couldn't tell by the next movie after Last Jedi being a movie based on Han Solo, it worked. So now I get to have a solo Solo joke for 2019, hooray!


Sunday 23 April 2017

Mediaholics Journal: Blaster's Happy Home Designing Week (16/4/17-23/4/17)

I may have gone overboard with the public works projects.. externally at least, but this is also a couple of extra days because I felt like spending coins to read.

I had five public works projects and, because these flesh creatures are easily satisfied, these projects got the bare minimum needed, or aesthetically pleasing in their work, they were happy with a shop that sold basket balls and nothing else, because for some reason they wanted a classroom full of gym equipment, and another which literally just has a cash register in it. "But thou must" works way you flesh peasants!

During those days, and a few after it, I had also finished paying off my tutorials, giving me access to facial modifications, refurbishing furniture, more variable interior layouts... decorating with insects and fish... for some reason, and others that I may never use. I feel so sorry for their religious figure, to have it look down on them and ask what went wrong. Oh and I made a log cabin for someone called Erik as the only house I did the entire week. He got something better then the facilities did.















Saturday 22 April 2017

ACNL: Medaiton Journal Week 3

Week 3: Eggcelent Holiday


Sorry if this week is kinda late and…barren…life got in the way. No poll for this week currently, Isabelle has a weird system with holidays blame her.

         Day 15:
                I walked out and my town was a mess. There were an unhealthy amount of rocks with…eggs in them? Eggs buried in the ground? Even eggs in the sky?!?! Maybe it had to do with the rabbit in town square?

Yes well today is Bunny Day! The day where…a rabbit comes over and messes up my town with eggs. He said if I found all six types of eggs I will get a special prize. Unfortunately, things didn’t turn out well. I found the other 5 but the 6th egg was pretty much unobtainable at the time. The 6th egg was somewhere out in the ocean and well…I couldn’t get to it with the tools I had. Now I just have a bunch of eggs I need to clean up in my town square. I am a busy mayor that is collecting money for the Dream Suite so I didn’t have time to clean it up. Guess they’re just going to sit there for the time being.

All hope wasn’t lost though. I found a slingshot so I can shoot down some presents from the sky. Although the only thing I could find was useless sky eggs. I’ll see a proper use for the slingshot next time.

An old Tortoise was sitting at the dock. His name is Tortimer, and believe it or not he was supposed to be the original mayor before I got here. I kind of wanted to give him a talking to since he just randomly dropped this job on me to go on a vacation or something. I held back because I honestly like this job, so I really have to thank him.

The old tortoise said I can go to the island whenever I wanted starting tomorrow. He mentioned something about a sailor that will take me for a fee. I’m honestly curious what they will have there.

Day 16:
A strange animal came to visit my house when I woke up. I have no idea how long he was waiting there…pretty creepy now that I think of it like that. The strange animal’s name was Shrunk, and he is asking me to sign a petition. 
The petition was for a Club to be built in the town plaza, and he hoped that loud music wouldn’t be an issue. Of course I was on board, as well as the villagers. Not one of them said no, but I can understand, especially Tex who specializes in music. Shrunk said I’ll have to wait a while until the club is officially built. I think it had a stupid name like…Club LOL or something like that. I honestly wish I could rename the club something else but…what can you do?
I visited the Town Hall to find Isabelle sleeping during her work. She was worried and swears she was dreaming of doing work. 
Honestly I feel bad, how long has she been here anyway? Does she ever take weekends? She said that a visitor requested a Dream Suite to be made in town. I said sure, but it’ll be a while because it takes about 200k bells to build. I guess I’ll just have to be a bit patient.

                A shabby looking sailor was at the dock, just as Tortimer said. His name was Kappn’, pretty creative. I paid him 1k bells which is not a lot for me and we sailed to the island. 
A song later, the cloudy skies broke into sunshine and the island came into view. Walking in on the right was a souvenir stand containing an item that…I honestly needed yesterday, the wet suit.
 Walking out the island was small adorned with lychees and banana trees. For the rest of the day I farmed the mini games there until I got the wet suit. I was so exhausted afterwards that I forgot to bring back the fruit.

        Day 17: 
   Waking up I noticed a new house plot, again, super close to my house. The name on the plot was…Felyne? I’m pretty sure that I met him at the campsite not too long ago. Maybe he got inspired to move here?

A shoe store opened up in town. It was run by a skunk who calls himself Kicks. Pretty appropriate, although I have yet to see shoes that I really want from there.

At the local Retail store, Reese’s husband Cyrus finally returns to his duties. He refurbishes furniture which is nice to decorate homes with. I’ll remake the egg that Felyne gave me, but I’ll check on it tomorrow.

While I’m at Retail, I can give you a tip on how to make money. You know those gems that you can collect from breaking rocks? You can sell them in retail for about much more. Gems usually go for exactly 7,999 bells and villagers will always eat it up. You can always sell items for quadruple the original selling price as long as they’re not above 8k.

While on my daily trip to the museum Blathers was concerned about something. He wanted to expand the museum to have a second story, and asked me to get funds for it. I would do it now, except I still have the dream suite to worry about.


Day 18: 
Sure enough, it is in fact Felyne. He remembers me from the campsite and said he wanted to move here so badly. I guess he got fed up with the monsters back at his home? Why his room looks like a magma cavern is beyond me.

I visited Tex’s house. Normally I don’t talk about mundane visits but it’s just really unhealthy to keep a seahorse on electrical equipment. Yeah, I’m just going to point out fire/electrical hazards in my villager’s homes.

Butch was talking about how much he wanted to meet the new villager in town. He calls himself the “shadow mayor”. I honestly don’t feel comfortable with this. What does he do that gives him that title? Is he the one leaving pitfalls everywhere?

I picked up the egg I left at Retail. He called it a “Leviathan Egg”. It bounces around sometimes, almost eager to get out. The egg feels almost shocking…


Day 19: 
Felyne moves in and he’s walking around with a shovel. Not sure what he’s doing. I’m sure he saw huge monsters back at home, why would he want to dig up bones of normal dinosaurs here?
I went to T&T Mart and saw possibly the best item I’ve ever seen. I like to call it “The Grand Wheel of RNG”.  I think I’m going to design my room around this, where everything is colorful. I just have to get the right items. My house just recently got expanded, so more of a reason to redecorate.

I heard Wendy talk about Biff. I hear her talking about him a lot actually. I tried to hold myself back but…I think I actually ship them. Pretty much everyone else in the town ships them too. I think the one that’s left in the dark about this is Biff himself.

Day 20: 
Honestly not much happened today. It’s almost like the villagers got burned out or something. I tried to ask them about things to do but they just wouldn’t give me anything. The only thing of note that happened was that Wendy called me a stupid nickname. Nono just…keep calling me Muffin. Oh yeah, and I also had a change of clothes because my old clothes were getting too worn out.


Day 21:
Isabelle was hosting a Nature Day event. Not much happened, except I saw all the leftover eggs that were still not cleaned up due to my lazyness that week. She handed me a cool globe which was pretty rad.
I found a lost mitten who I found out it belonged to Felyne. First try again, I must be really lucky with these guesses. Not sure why he would want a mitten in the warmer season of spring. My only guess its part of some armor set or something, or maybe I’m thinking too into it.


Pinky gave me a present to give to Naomi. The present contained some ugly green melon shirt in which Naomi happily wore. The shirt she wore before was actually a really rare shirt. I think Pinky just made a sin against human and animal kind.


Note: Mediaton is getting a quick break next week, no polls this week

Playlist Update

Source Link:youtu.be/3h28bEAoPkk
Playlist Link: youtube.com/playlist?list=PL0UmlA10uAY8JFBgyAE4PJVbaZZbe3dTb

Not cancellation, just an update, a pause for the playlist

Friday 21 April 2017

Mediaholics Playlist: Freezeey Peaks

Source Link: youtu.be/nB8pRN89DtI
Playlist Link: youtube.com/playlist?list=PL0UmlA10uAY8JFBgyAE4PJVbaZZbe3dTb

"We used to be the one on top...until a Lizard and a Bat took our spotlight" -Banjo probably

All songs that go up are randomized from a private list, so we may have songs on there that you like too. We are though always open to more suggestions, as between the people who have helped work on this list, it’s still safe to say that we haven’t played every game, listened to every song. Have one you want to see? Comment it down below and we’ll add it to the list.

Thursday 20 April 2017

Mediaholics Playlist: Nokia's Theme

Source Link: youtu.be/2t9dkL4UycA
Playlist Link: youtube.com/playlist?list=PL0UmlA10uAY8JFBgyAE4PJVbaZZbe3dTb

Cheater! Cheater! Cheater! Cheater! Cheater! Cheater! Cheater! Cheater! Cheater! Cheater! Cheater! Cheater! Cheater! Cheater! 

All songs that go up are randomized from a private list, so we may have songs on there that you like too. We are though always open to more suggestions, as between the people who have helped work on this list, it’s still safe to say that we haven’t played every game, listened to every song. Have one you want to see? Comment it down below and we’ll add it to the list.

Wednesday 19 April 2017

Android Triple Hit: Because Blaster can actually do more with his phone now

Pretty on the nose, but yeah that's the reason I haven't done a lot of ios and android games. My iPod touch and phone I got back around 2011, they were out of date, my iPod still is. And before anyone asks, I like dedicated equipment, something designed to do one thing is going to do that one thing better then something designed to do 100 things. I also admit that yes that probably has affected my judgement on these three, I know it has for at least one of them. I ask you hear me out, so that you might be able to see where I'm coming from. As to what those three games are? They are Transformers Earth Wars, Transformers Forged to Fight, and Fire Emblem Heroes. Like with every solo review I do, I will be having images that split up each review so that if you only want to see one, then scroll down until you see the image for the one you want. With that out of the way

Transformers Earth Wars: So this is what its like in between episodes...


The plot for Earth Wars is pretty basic (spoiler, all three of these games have simple plots). The Autobots and Decepticons are fighting on earth, and in order to achieve dominance. To do this, you as the player must build up your base and army, and then use your army to destroy bases of the opposite faction. What's the difference between the factions? Almost nothing in terms of gameplay, the biggest difference being who you have easier access at getting. I sided with the Decepticons, so my base structures have more of a Decepticon look to them, and while I can get Autobots, I have 5 Autobots to around 47 Decepticons. The character selections have been designed as well to make as many characters have the same powers on both sides, which is probably the only reason Octopunch is in the game as he's a clone of Seaspray (look them up, I have to keep moving). The roster itself also has some questionable choices, as I can think of some far more well known characters to go in then the afore mentioned Octopunch, with another being Viper.

Designs themselves, while they try to make them look as close to each other as possible, its a hogpoge of designs from the CHUG era (Classics, Henkei, Universe, Generations. Basically the current size scale) along with Masterpiece/ original generation 1 toy. You've got Megatron who has his Combiner Wars design (granted each of these are tweaked so they aren't one for one) along with the combiner limbs that are in the game as well as the two complete combiners (like I said, I picked cons, so most of my examples are going to be cons). You've then got ones like Bludgeon and Seaspray that have their Hunt for the Decepticons designs back from movie 2, Optimus Prime and Star Sabre who have their Masterpiece designs, though granted Prime's is a little different, borrowing some cues from his combiner wars repaint of Motormaster). It is interesting to see, but what does make it distracting is the model reuse. While some are expected like Nemesis Prime being Optimus like he always is. The afore mentioned Octopunch because Seaspray, along with Slipstream because Windblade, Nightbird because Arcee among maybe more are other examples of it, I can only talk about what I've seen because... well...

All three games covered here are free to play, pay to win, so we have some of my all time favorite mechanics in games including "multiple currencies with the only one you can convert into others being the one you get the least of and the one directly connected to real life money", "timers that mean you might only play a game for 10 minutes before being told "wait or pay", "random number generation that determines what you get and don't get making it harder to get the thing you want, making you want to pay real money" and "no roof for payments before features get unlocked so you can pay every cent you own into a barely rewarding game". Real talk, if you actually do like these mechanics (the lines before meaning to be sarcastic as I absolutely hate them), then you're part of the problem as to why the F2P model is a piece of money grubbing scrap. How does it work here? Well, one part of the game is base construction. You build a base that will get you resources, being Energon, Alloy, both of which are needed for construction and upgrades, and eventually Ore-13, for combiners. You will also, on average, get two crystals daily which will give you power ups to use in battle (more on that later) or low star units. Higher the star count, the stronger the character. If you get a double (which I swear should not be as common as it is), then you can get shards for a crystal that is a star up from the one you get the double of, and other things mainly for powering up units. If you need more of any of these, you need "Cyber Coins", which is the thing you can pay for.

As you build your base, you attack other bases to get boosts in resources, but if you can attack others, others can attack you. I've had 10 people attack me, only successfully two attacks so far. It's very easy to attack, a lot harder to defend because the combat is all automated. You can choose when to use special moves and where units start at, but apart from that, its a cutscene. Considering you need to be online to play this, I'd rather be spending my time with something else now that I've cleared the, at times brutal, campaign to get the combiner lab that I can only use if RNG lets me get the right Constructicons and Combatacons. Moving on!

Transformers Forged to Fight: Transformers goes Street Fighter


"How do we mash up as many continuities as we can into one game?" Apparently the answer was street fighter with micro transactions and a hexagon rock paper scissors mechanic. Ok then...

I admit this is the game I've put the least amount of time into, more due to technicals, in terms of plot, Optimus Prime has crashed onto a planet that is in a state of spacial and temporal flux, bringing characters, both autobot and decepticon to the planet and making them fight each other. To unlock more characters, you go through the same RNG system as Earth Wars, but what makes this one more annoying is the variety. I've only just taken out Starscream again, but for that, I had to fight Movieverse Grindor, Ironhide and Bumblebee, I could have fought Windblade, I did fight Rhinox, and there's more in the game, and probably a lot more to come. I'd be down for some Unicron trillogy love, though that's more transformers general. The character collection is basically the same as what it was for Earth Wars, so I won't dwell on it here.

My issues with the game come down to performance, and controls. This is a fighting game, but the controls don't feel very precise, not very detailed, all the fights I've done so far, and this is coming from someone's who's main experience in fighting games is Super Smash Brothers, I've won by tapping the touch screen at random, overpowering my opponents with speed and luck over skill. What also doesn't help is that my actions could lead to the move I didn't want to do because its a combination of taping, swiping and holding the screen for your light, heavy, ranged, shield, dodge and super move. The game also chugs at times in terms of a solid frame rate. What that rate is, I don't care about, but it does noticeably drop and stutter. I don't know why, it shouldn't, my phone's as up to date as possible in terms of hardware, so it comes off as "optimized for tablets" which makes me wonder why it wasn't, if possible, locked to being just for tablets. Presentation's also pretty bleak. In Earth Wars, the characters had animations during dialogue, whereas here, its still portraits, which does feel like a downgrade by comparison. The art style also goes for a "realistic" approach, in that every colour looks depressingly dark. Was it because of the Beast Wars and Movieverse characters? Regardless, I personally would have preferred a lighter colour pallete. But, to each their own. If they can get the technical side to the game sorted out, I'll give it another try, but until then, if you want a new fighting game, probably not the best place to look if you're into the Street Fighter/ Mortal Kombat/ Tekken ect style.

Fire Emblem Heroes: Chibi powers, activate!


Might as well get this quickly out of the way, as people are going to ask, I didn't get into Super Mario Run, it just didn't hook me.

Fire Emblem Heroes, the third in house Nintendo game on phones, bringing the stratergy from Fire Emblem to the phone. As a short answer to if they did it, I'd say yes. The plot for it is that two kingdoms are traveling to the realms of the main games, from the original Fire Emblem, all the way to Fates, siding with the playable characters from each game. You have the power to summon random heroes, and you're tasked with breaking the contracts of each of the heroes to stop the villain army, or rather one spoiled little kid and her army. From where I stand in it right now, its a veil for the game, and an excuse to get the characters, which to me, is interesting because most of my experience with Fire Emblem is limited to Awakening and Fates (along with Smash, but that goes without saying), so getting a feel for each of these characters, almost all of them I had either forgotten about, or had never heard of before. All of the characters do have English voices too, so for the first time ever, Marth and Roy have an English voice.
I was lucky enough to get her early on, she's one of the strongest in my team right now thanks to her Dragonstone. I also participated in the Easter event, so I do have Bunny Lucina, I just don't want to risk that genie getting out. Will say though that Bunny Lucina is cute, not as rediculous as Chrom or Xander, and not as... expected, as Camilla

The gameplay is as close to Fire Emblem as you can get when taking into account the mobile format. Permadeath's disabled because of the F2P parts of the game (but more on that later), characters only have one weapon to them, and special moves are easier to pull off, but the trade off is a 4v4 environment for combat, and maps limited to the one screen, so what you see in map size is what you get. This takes some getting used to because there's not much safe room to move, and some characters got a nerf for the sake of balance (I liked it when mages didn't need to be a space away to attack), but it is Fire Emblem on a handheld. The F2P model also feels more player friendly here. It might be because I'm not very far into the game, but the play session timer hasn't run out for me yet, orbs that are needed to summon heroes are plentiful, and while I have had double ups, they haven't been as ridiculously common as earth wars where 47/130+ means I keep seeing characters I already have. If we have to have the F2P model, I'd rather a version of it that is player friendly in some form rather then punishing because you haven't paid them everything you own for the sake of that rare item.

I do really like the presentation for the game though. I'm assuming the soundtrack is a mix of original and remixed/ reused songs from past fire emblem games, I cannot confirm that though, but what I do like about it is the new artwork. Each of the character portraits is well done, and their in battle/ overworld chibi sprites are very cute. I'd love to see this style used in the main games for things like FE 2018, as I think its safe to say they're not in Shadows of Valentia or Fire Emblem Warriors.

Hard to do a full summary for each of these games, they may be worth looking into if you're looking for something new to play, but for the next two reviews, what should they be? The strawpoll can be found here http://www.strawpoll.me/12771732 and before I'm asked, Heart Gold and Soul Silver arc will be after these two. I haven't forgotten... Ok I completely forgot about how much time was left in the month, but I'll stick to it.

Mediaholics Playlist: Battle for Storm Hill

Source Link: youtu.be/toTn9h3DA18
Playlist Link: youtube.com/playlist?list=PL0UmlA10uAY8JFBgyAE4PJVbaZZbe3dTb

Bongo drums... to play a platformer... I'm game

All songs that go up are randomized from a private list, so we may have songs on there that you like too. We are though always open to more suggestions, as between the people who have helped work on this list, it’s still safe to say that we haven’t played every game, listened to every song. Have one you want to see? Comment it down below and we’ll add it to the list.