These 2 little sets were too adorable to skip.

Created around the new Solo movie last year, there put out a series of new Star Wars BrickHeadz.

There is not too much too them, clocking in at only 141 and 149 pieces each, they took about 30 mins to assemble each.

The design on them is rather outstanding though. Han really does capture his Solo image even with so few bricks.

The hair was really well done, and his outfit is spot on.

Same goes for Chewbacca as well, he is suitable “fluffy” looking while being smooth plastic.

Standing only a couple inches high, they are just adorable.

Funny thing happened while putting Han together, i noticed halfway into doing his hair, that without the rest of it he looks just like Woody Harlson from Solo. HAHAHA

A couple of fun sets for under $10 and well worth it if you are a fan of Han and Chewie.

Picked mine up from Lego’s online shop directly.

 

So almost my entire collection of Lego and Lepin consists of Star Wars and a couple pirate ships that I am phasing out (except the Sea Cow)

But when I saw Lego was doing a play set for the Apacolypseburg city from Lego Movie 2 I had to have one, even if it meant building it and taking it apart again as I have no room for it.

Luckily I found room for it, but it meant taking down the Super Star Destroyer, but honestly I was never much of a fan of that ship, chock my review on it if you are interested.

So when I found out Lepin was making this set it was a no brainer for me.

Coming in at 3560 pieces this is a LARGE play set. When the average sets are under 1000 pieces, it is nice to see Lego jumping in to something of this size for a family friendly set.

While cost prohibitive from Lego ($499 Canadian) it was much more reasonable from Lepin at just $112usd.

It is stuff like that that drove me to Lepin in the first place.

The set is thankfully well numbered and easy to follow, all new Lepin sets are now, or the official Lego ones at least.

Like usual it comes all jammed in one very tightly packed box.

The manual itself is about 3 lbs!

So with almost all the bags numbered properly, what I do to sort them is put them into their piles, then I put the groups into plastic grocery bags. So Step one uses bags 1, 2, 3 and 4. So all of them go into one grocery bag. This definitely helps for large sets like this.

Oddly there was 2 bags with no numbers and a handful of bricks that were loose and could be from any bag as a couple were ripped (which always makes me nervous). They did end up being used later, but with brands like Lepin, you never know what they could be, I have read of folks getting random bags from other sets before, so who knows!

The massive sticker sheet…

Each of the steps consist of 3 to 4 sets of numbered bags, and there is a total of 18 numbered groups. This is all the bags in Step 1.

There is a ridiculous amount of detail in this set, every nook and cranny is filled with cool things, like rats in the display case for sale and coffee from a gas pump in “Coffee Un hainded”

The main level is complete and again, filled with tons of detail, from poor Surfing Steve looking pretty bad ass with his chainsaw and  his awesome surf boards chilling in front of his Winnebago.

To fish hanging out in the outdoor kitchen.

To the awesome makeshift gym with home made weights and punching bag.

Clearly everything is now Awesome as we need to bathe outside and have a place for criminals.

This set is definitely not for the space challenged as it is massive, the base comes in at 19″ by 12″ but it is somewhat angled so it seems a bit larger as a whole in how it will fit on a shelf.

Little details are really everywhere, we have a burger joint out back, a workroom and the list goes on.

Every layer has a few rooms with more stuff to do.

Batman sits atop his perch above Wildstyle’s bedroom. keeping an ever watchful eye on the town.

Once fully assembled it stands at a whopping 20″ tall

The cobbled together mish mash of styles is what makes this set so great, nothing looks like it belongs, yet it all somehow fits.

Definitely one of my favorite builds of all time.

Just make sure if you are ever in town, skip the burger place, their hotdogs could kill you, or at least break a tooth!

This set was so much fun and looks really great on a shelf, and is a great talking piece for the mature builder.

For a Lepin set this is top notch. I didn’t have a single issue issue with it, and it went together like any normal Lego set.

Clutch was perfect, colors seemed accurate, no mini figs looked weird, they all had the right hair and faces.

I built this over the course of a week, a couple hours at a time in the evenings.It was not a hard build in any way, you can see it was definitely aimed at kids, which is fine too as it added a bit to the fun factor.

If you are looking for a cool alternative build, definitely pick up Welcome to Apacolypseburg, you will not be disappointed.

 

 

 

 

Before I start this is the first set I am reviewing with my new Nikon D850. So let us know what you think of the shots. Review on the camera is coming soon as well.

So a few years back when Lego discontinued the UCS Sandcrawler I managed to snag one for a steal at Walmart.ca. It was about $200 off, and I had it sitting here for years never getting to assembling it, I just kept procrastinating and never got to it.

Then I started checking used prices and decided not to put it together and finally grab the Lepin version and just put the Lego one away for future sale for a hefty profit.

So I managed to grab on of these back in Feb 2019, a few months before the raid in China on Lepin, so I am counting my lucky stars I did not decide to put it off any longer.

Clocking in at 3346 pieces this set was BIG. And unfortunately it predated the days of numbered bags, so it was one massive humble that needed sorting.

So I tend to sort in individual bags, i keep them together as much as possible, I find that the way they part them out adds to a logical state, while not in any order, they are still together as they came, so step 50 may need 10 pieces all from bag 10 if you will, saves in having to re-sort every last brick.

This is the end product.

The build itself was fairly straight forward, but unlike most UCS sets this was more of a playset than an actual Model like most.

The tank tracks on the bottom are not particularly functional, I found that it really does not roll like you would expect, and they kind of get stuck, now I am not sure if this is a Lepin thing, or a design issue that Lego has too, all I can say is it does not appear to be a flaw in the bricks causing it.

The framework is very much like a technic build, it is well designed and feels very sturdy, even for off-brand bricks.

The side panels are very well designed to give that old rusted metal look, and Lego’s design pulled out a few tricks to make the angles work well.

The inner details are a nice touch in the cockpit.

The interior (which is hard to picture) has tone of details, a working crane, sorting bin for droids, etc

No one downside for me on that topic, is in recent years Lego has been moving more towards functional UCS sets.

Personally I am not a fan of this. While sure it makes for a more interesting set if your kid want to fly it around or play with it, it can tend to put weird things on the set that make it “functional” and less model like.

For instance the gear that pokes out the top to make the ramp go down or the back to turn the tracks.

Now I know I could just leave them off, but it feels wrong to do that.

The set itself comes with a large pile of droids and Jawas, as well as Luke and uncle Ben.

This this was a fun build to do, bricks had great clutch throughout, stickers look good and it looks great completed and on a shelf.

Short of parting out the Minifig scale MOC version (which is over 10k pieces), you are unlikely to find a better Sandcrawler out there.

Coming in at $108 USD I would definitely recommend grabbing one if you can
still find one now that Lepin is dead (for now at least).

So I just finished up with Days Gone and it is my first platinum of 2019, bringing my total to 52 now.

I usually let that be a measure of how much I loved a game, but with Days Gone that is not the case. Not even 100% sure why I persisted to get it after the game was over really.

Now that is not to say Days Gone is bad, but I saw a review that really nailed it in one statement.

“Days Gone should have been called AAA The Video Game”

Why?

Because it checks all the boxes, it misses nothing.

Good story, huge open world, lots to do, lots of meaningful side quests, good progression system, decent NPCs, ok combat, etc, etc.

But notice how in that statement I never said great.

That is Days Gone in a nutshell.

It does everything just ok, and it is hands down the best mediocre game I have every played (use that as a backhanded box quote if you like), but never excels past OK.

It never falters in its design, but it never moves the genre forward either.

I am not one about change in video games. If you have a system that is great, do not remake the whole franchise from the ground up next game (I am looking at you Square-Enix) take the good and cut the bad.

But Days Gone just never gets passed the status quo.

It never does anything wrong, but it never does anything overly right.

I know this may sound a bit cryptic, but it is a tough game to explain, because on one hand, it compelled me to play ti to 100%, on the other I look back and thing Meh, that was OK.

While I wanted to know more about the world and how this zombie end of days came to pass, for the vast majority of the people in it, I simply didn’t care.

It was very cliche, you had all the typical zombie genre tropes. The good camp set on making the world a better place, the crazy slaver lady using refugees as slave labor, the crazy conspiracy theory camp, the militia camp and the nut-bag Zombie worshiper faction.

All of which we have seen in most zombie genres since we have had zombie movies and games.

And that is just it, Days Gone never really tried to excel, tried to break the norm genre bar that has been set for decades.

That is, until the 60th hour (yes Days Gone is bloody long) when there is a mind-blowing reveal as a mission only available after 100% of the missions are complete.

Something that turn the game and the genre on its head, and makes me want to play Days Gone 2 now.

I wont spoil anything here, but I implore you to play this to the bitter end even once the credits roll, it is really worth the pay off.

All the games NPC threads get tied up post game which is weird.

When the credits rolled I was left asking “well what about Mike, what about Lisa, what happened to O’Brian” and all that gets answered in the proceeding 10 odd side missions.

The core game itself is also a perfectly made mediocre shooter / sneaking game.

With Assassin’s Creed like sneaking in bushes and hit and run tactics if you get caught cleaning out an enemy camp.

The game is built around stealth when dealing with human players, but in the later half of the game I found little difficulty walking into a camp and just shooting people left right and center, so it was a bit game breaking and jarring. IT went from tactical stealth shooter to run and gun in an instant. When you realize there is no benefit to sneaking around after you kill the first 100 people in stealth for a trophy, then it kinda feels like you broke the game and are not playing like the developer intended.

One of the coolest features of the game though that is original, is your motorcycle. This is the equivalent to a good NPC companion.

You level it up via upgrades that are gated behind camp friendship level. Do more for a camp, the more things you can buy from them. From shocks to fuel tank upgrades, engine, frames, etc. All helping give you speed and traction to traverse all over Oregon.

One pro tip I learned at the 60 hour mark when looking to find a way to get my last trophy (a weird one where you have to boost and drift for 5 seconds) and I come to find you can teleport your bike anywhere on the map wit the press and hold of Square…. That would have helped save hours of walking back to my bike after taking out a Ambush base… /facepalm.

Nowhere in the games menus or loading screens did it mention this tip, wtf guys!!!!

The game visuals are top notch here too. With full well done HDR support, the game though dark at times really shines with properly calibrated HDR.

Dark caves offer up dancing shadows and dark yet visible corners.

Day and night cycles look perfect in HDR, with moonlight breaking through the trees and casting shows through a forest.

Another standout is the weather system, it will drizzle, rain, thunderstorm and snow, all of which dynamically change the environment.

Stand still in a camp while it is snowing and you can see the ground slowly change from brown and muddy to snow covered in a few mins. Also affecting bike traction I might add.

This is where Days Gone shines, on the little things, the stuff that makes the world more human and real. Sadly the things we may take for granted and ignore.

Lastly is the sound presentation.

Days Gone may be one of the best games I have ever heard in simulated Atmos.

Rain storms completely fill the top of the theater in sound, you can hear the rain falling, here it pinging off tin roofs and thudding on traditional ceilings. It was a real pleasure to listen to.

The only thing that suffered a bit was like most games, the dialog with NPC in front of you could sometimes be too low, yet if you swung around and put them standing behind you, they were loud and clear, and no, this is not due to a poorly calibrated theater, all my speakers are done via Audyssey and then hand tweaked with a SPL meter. So they are balanced.

It is sadly the nature of the game, and it happens in about 50% of the games I play. No clue why, but it must be a mixing thing.

All in all Days Gone was a fun time, but never wowed me, never pulled me in and made me race home from work to play, it just tops out as OK, and sometimes, that is OK too.

A decent 7.5/10, could have been much higher if they reached a bit more. A must have for Zombie genre fans, as there is nothing else out there quiet like it.

What began with Demon Souls a decade ago in 2009 on the PS3 has come a long way. Spawning an entire genre of old school difficulty from the Ninja Gaiden days and adding in modern day refinements like online griefing to make the most loved it or hate it category in gaming to date.

Now “Souls” games themselves are not for everyone, and many a plebe has cried foul over the years for these games not being accessible to them. But here is the kicker. They are not suppose to be, nor do they have to be.

This genre is for the die hards, for those that love a challenge and rejoice in the fact of not having a difficulty slider. For those who come home after a hard day of work, and want to have their ass handed to them. There are no shortcuts, no cheats, no hand holding. Just you and the game until either you break through, or it breaks you.

And break me it did.

I used to be a Souls lover til the bitter end. Seeking out games for their challenge, playing and game I buy on the hardest setting to challenge myself. I felt I had to earn a story, to play it like the hero, struggle like they did.

Well you know what…

That is bullshit.

In the last year playing through my backlog (or last 5 years really) I have come to find a few things.

I no longer crave that challenge. I know I am a good gamer. I know I can play on Insane mode and win, and that has become enough for me.

Sekiro was the straw that broke the camels back.

Unlike other Souls games, for the first time this game does not have any online component. Now some may rejoice in this, you no longer have assholes invading your world and killing you in one hit. Which is wonderful.

But what you do not have now is the ability to call for help from wayward strangers looking to lend a hand to gamers truly stuck.

So in Sekiro, it is you against the machine, and that is it.

Now for the most part, that is great, and honestly, the searching and path-finding from previous games is here and it is better than all previous iterations of Souls games combined.

But where the stop gap comes is the boss fights.

About 50% of the way through I got stuck. And that kind of stuck that is not fun, think God of War Valkyrie on Give me God of War mode (which I did by the way, on my first play-through), where I could not simply grasp the mechanics to do the fight.

I tried dozens of different strategies online (something I never look at btw), all looking like they could cut this guy down like a knife through hot butter. Yet whatever I did, I could not progress. After about 10 hours I finally beat him, and the felling of elation that I should have had, was not there, it was bitter resentment. I was pissed I wasted 10 hours on a single boss, and it did not feel fulfilling in any way shape or form.

I continued along with my usual pace until the very end boss, and hit the same wall. It was the same guy again, and then followed up with another uber boss.

I was able to best the 1st form with relative ease, as I was so powerful now. And then his second form shredded me like tissue paper, over and over for 4 hours before I say, fuck this, and quit. Not out of rage, but out of apathy. I simply didn’t care at this point. It was no longer worth my time, and I really was not having fun anymore. So for my first time in my 43 years, at the final boss, I hung it up and quit, never to return.

And you know what, I am ok with that.

It shows how I have evolved as a gamer. It shows that I have grown up. I no longer need that crazy difficulty to validate myself in my own mind. I just want to play, to have fun, to unwind after a hard week. Not to put up with the BS mechanics in a otherwise perfect game.

And that is the real crux of it. Sekiro at its heart is fantastic.

They took the Souls genre and advanced it in a massive leap.

The stealth mechanic makes it feel like a weird mix of Tenchu meets Onimusha meets Metal Gear Solid 4.

Slap all that together and it is a great package.

The mini boss fights are hard but fun and fair.

The game progress system is leaps and bounds better than the old Souls game, now when you are killing things, you kind of bank your EXP. You have these little gems you use to upgrade your skills, and when you get X number of exp, you gain a gem. When you die, and gems you have are locked in.

You only lose half you unbanked exp and half your money.

The trade off is there is no place to go pick up the lost exp and cash, it is gone for good.

This added a weird farming component to it. When you make it to a new checkpoint, and if you are a few thousand away from another gem, you can warp to another “campfire” and kill a few lower level enemies you have no fear dying from to get the exp to the next level, so when you go back, you stand to lose nothing if you die.

It is a clever little hack that saves having to lose a ton of exp for nothing.

The skill trees in Sekiro work like a traditional RPG. You level up new skills buy using the gems you have. As you find new weapons and such you unlock completely new skill trees. All of which when fully maxed out give you a uber ability. But grinding them out is no small feat. After playing for about 40 hours, I was still nowhere close to my first uber ability.

On top of this you have a pile of items for you to use and master, and they are integral to success. From ninja flash-bangs (fire crackers) that stun an enemy, to a silly umbrella that is one of the most powerful items in the game as it can block even the biggest of hits when upgraded, it a switchblade like axe that is used to break enemies defensive stances.

All of this is used and balanced with some superb combat design.

You must absolutely master blocking and deflection if you hope to get anywhere in Sekiro. You and the enemies in the game have a stamina meter, the more you block heavy hits, the more you deplete stamina. Deplete a boss all the way, and you can do a crushing move that can kill him (or take his health bar down 1 level) even if he has 90% of his HP. This is really important in fighting bosses, as most of the time the fights are won this way much easier than hit and run tactics.

Beyond the mechanics, the visual in Sekiro are top notch.

On the PS4 Pro the game plays like a dream and looks incredible in HDR. It was give a top notch treatment. There are many dark environments, and with a properly calibrated system the subtle shadows look amazing.

Colors pop and are quiet varied. From fields of yellow to popping red roofs and crystal blue waters. All of this adds up to a perfect visual experience and one of the better looking HDR games out there.

Sounds it self is well done as well, with a subtle musical soundtrack, and great environmental atmosphere it makes the 7.1 channels come alive.

It however did not do too great in the Atmos side, but not too shocking as there is not much happening up above.

All in all Sekiro is not a bad game, it is just no longer MY kind of game. It is a Souls game to its core, but I am just no longer in love with that genre.

In the immortal words of Roger Murtaugh, I am too damn old for this shit….

A solid 8/10 for true Souls fans, and honestly a hard pass if you do not like a hard unforgiving game.

In preparation for playing Kingdom Hearts 3, I took a step into the way back machine and decided to go all in and play the whole damn series over again from the beginning.

As it had been a decade since I last play Kingdom Hearts 2, I could barely remember what happened.

Having touched only Chains of Memory on the Gameboy Advance (yes, THAT long ago) I figured I really needed to visit Sora and the gang again to get the full breadth of experience.

So I dove back in and played them all in order, including watching all the videos from the fantastic mobile game that I had no interest in playing, yet was completely relevant to the Kingdom Hearts lore.

This was a herculean undertaking, with a total of 9 games (2 of which are just available on PS4 as videos) and then another 5 odd hours of youtube cut-scenes you are looking about 120 hours total to go through it all on Easy or Normal modes.

What did I get for the experience?

One of the most amazing video game stories every told.

It is my absolute recommendation that anyone planning to play Kingdom Hearts 3 give this method a go. Sure it will take a while, but hey, why bother playing if you are not a fan of the series? And if so, then why not give yourself the best experience possible.

With all that said and done, I managed to finish up just prior to the release of Kingdom Hearts 3.

So how can you make a game in a franchise that is so beloved after so long and hope for it to be a hit?

I am not sure, but Square-Enix did just that.

Having just played all the previous titles it was clear that KH3 is a perfect evolution of the series.

Combat has change significantly from the days of KH1 (which by contrast feels terrible in retrospect), with things being very fast paced now and well designed.

Not only do you have the standard compliment of skills present in some of the other games, they now add a plethora of “Limit Break” skills that are both good and bad. On one hand they look incredible, they are all designed around classic Disney amusement park rides, from the tea cups, to the giant swinging boat ride.

Now they look amazing on the big screen, and the first time you see them, the visual spectacle will have you watching mouth agape, BUT, but the 40th hour playing, you are totally sick of them. You have ridden the damn boat about 500 times, it is enough already.

Sadly this is the pitfall a lot of games fall into, how do you make some cool special moves without them getting tedious long term. I don;t have the answer, but this was one that KH3 missed on.

With KH3 we also see the love it or hate it Gummi ship return. I personally have always been a fan from the KH1 days, but I can see why people could dislike it. This time round you have full 360 degree free roam game-play.

This plays out in giant sphere shaped worlds, where you travel between worlds, and allows you to have preset encounters on the map. Get close enough to an enemy aircraft and you entry somewhat of a mini-game. Fighting waves of enemies pseudo Galaga style to meet certain conditions. Like shoot down X number of enemies, or to kill so many ships in a time frame. All garnering you a rating and netting you different items the better you do.

On top of this there are some of the games biggest boss fights here, flying against massive enemies and fortresses.

Personally I had a blast with the Gummi areas, the controls were tight and the places you visit fun and fresh.

The core of the game plays out like all the other games, go to a world, trigger different story points, then fight a boss to continue on to other world, all the while giving you snigglets of the overlying story.

One of the big pitfalls though with KH3 is, Square takes for granted you know all about Kingdom Hearts. The story makes little to no sense at all if you are not familiar with the lore.

Without it, it is just a collection of cool places to visit without much point.

That is not to say it is not a good game on its own, but if you are playing for story alone and have not played the other games, you will be lost.

There is a lot of fan service here to those that know the minutia of the Kingdom Hearts universe.

All that said though, we have never had a game that so captures the Disney world, from Toy Story world, to Monsters Inc., it is literally like playing a Pixar movie. It looks out of this world. From the posters in Andy’s room, to the fluffy clouds in Hercules’ realm, it is all meticulously designed and you can see the care that went into making it.

The story itself wraps up almost 20 years of building in a nice neat little package, but still leaves you with some mysteries for the future of the series.

I will not go into detail as I do not want to spoil anything, but almost every question asked over the years gets answered and in a way that makes sense.

My only gripe is for some reason, Square decided to drop 99% of the Final Fantasy side of things from the game. Now only having things like constellations to find in the Gummi ship that are named after Final Fantasy monsters, like Cactar and Toneberries.

It was a big disappointment to not see Cid, Cloud or any of the other band of friends you had over the years. Not sure why they were not included, but it definitely felt like they were missing on purpose.

All in all Kingdom Hearts 3 is a great game, even with its few wart, and it is the game fans have been waiting 10 years for.

A 9.5/10 and a must play for fans of the series.