Broadway is a major east-west thoroughfare in the city of Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. In Vancouver’s numbered avenue grid system, it runs in place of a 9th Avenue, between 8th and 10th. The street has six lanes for most of its course. Portions of the street carry the British Columbia Highway 7 designation.

The route begins as “West Broadway” at the intersection of Wallace Crescent and 8th Avenue, in the affluent residential neighbourhood of West Point Grey, a few kilometres east of the University of British Columbia (UBC). Past Alma Street, Broadway takes over from 10th Avenue as one of Vancouver’s major thoroughfares, as it enters Greek West Broadway (or Greektown) section of Vancouver’s Kitsilano district. East of here are several blocks of generally trendy, upscale shops interspersed with low-rise apartment blocks and small supermarkets. The surrounding neighbourhoods generally consist of large, older homes dating from the early twentieth century, many of which have been subdivided into rental suites.

As Broadway approaches Arbutus Street, the commercial establishments become larger before transitioning into a mix of small to mid-size apartment blocks. East of Burrard Street, the apartment blocks get progressively taller, and commercial establishments larger and busier. Between Burrard and Main Street, Broadway can be considerably congested by vehicular traffic. Past Granville Street, Broadway yields completely to medium-to-large commercial structures and high-rise apartments and condominiums. Between Cambie and Main, the commercial establishments become smaller and somewhat more downscale.

At Ontario Street, two blocks west of Main, the route becomes “East Broadway.” After bisecting Main and Kingsway, traffic on Broadway eases somewhat, and the character returns to a mix of small-to-medium apartment buildings and commercial establishments, interspersed with older homes – all considerably less affluent than those to the west. At Commercial Drive, Broadway passes by the Commercial–Broadway SkyTrain Station. Past here for several blocks, the neighbourhood consists predominantly of older residential homes.

As Broadway travels east of Renfrew Street, the neighbourhood once again becomes mixed, with older homes to the north and larger industrial, commercial, and warehouse establishments to the south. Broadway finally ends at Cassiar Street, just short of the Vancouver-Burnaby boundary, where it becomes the Lougheed Highway.

Broadway was created at the turn of the 20th century, along with other gridded roads south of False Creek, to meet the needs of an expanding population in Vancouver. The name of the route was changed from 9th Avenue to Broadway in 1909, at the behest of merchants around Main Street (at that time the hub of Vancouver commerce), who felt that it bestowed a more cosmopolitan air. Commercial establishments originally spread out around the intersections of Cambie and Main Streets, while the character of the rest of the route remained predominantly single-family dwellings.

By the 1970s, the length of Broadway had become a major arterial route in Vancouver, conveying commuters from downtown to the neighbourhoods of the west and east sides. With the growth of UBC and the expansion of the Vancouver General Hospital (one block south of Broadway between approximately Oak and Cambie), traffic demands accelerated. In the 1990s, the agency then responsible for public transit in Greater Vancouver — BC Transit — introduced an express bus route, the 99 B-Line, to help reduce congestion. The Vancouver transportation plan for Broadway notes that congestion is such that the bus service is at capacity, and will not be eased until a new rapid transit line is built paralleling the street. It is anticipated that the SkyTrain’s Millennium Line will be extended to Central Broadway by 2021; the extension is expected to connect with Canada Line at Broadway-City Hall Station, at the intersection of Broadway and Cambie Street.

Is this assassin worth hiring?

The Last of Us, a 2013 survival horror roleplaying video game, is widely considered one of the best video games of this decade. Its developer, Naughty Dog, is known for several other video game franchises, notably Jak and Daxter, Crash Bandicoot, and Uncharted, but they shrivel in comparison to The Last of Us. Reasons for this judgment are plenty; not only is the story line beautifully deep and filled with fascinating verisimilitude, but the characters, gameplay, graphics, soundtrack, and all other features of the game make it an enjoyable, nearly perfect gaming experience.

Summary

The Last of Us is about a man named Joel smuggling a fourteen-year-old girl named Ellie across a post-apocalyptic United States. The world has been overrun by a virus that has turned people into zombie-like creatures dubbed “the infected”, and Ellie may hold the answer to a cure. At first, the two cannot stand each other but as the game progresses, so does their relationship as Ellie reminds Joel of his deceased daughter.

Story

To get right to it, this story is like a novel. In fact, it is often compared to Cormac McCarthy’s The Road. In a review for The Last of Us written for IGN, Colin Moriarty explains:

“The Last of Us is a near-perfect analog for The Road, a literary masterpiece written by Cormac McCarthy. Both present a hopeless, post-apocalyptic situation navigated by two characters – an adult and a child – with nothing but absolute despair surrounding them. Like The Road, The Last of Us is perpetually dangerous and unpredictable, and like The Road, what happened to get society to a point of rapid decay isn’t the focus. It’s the story of the characters at hand, and those characters alone, at the center of both plots. The beauty of The Last of Us when compared to The Road, however, is that it’s fully interactive, complete with all of the vulnerability, uncertainty and perpetual insecurity such a situation inherently provides.”

Clever jump scares balance the heart-wrenching emotional scenes and brutal fights in the game and at the end, the player is left feeling as if they were physically present for the entire experience. It helps that the characters are so dynamic; it is almost as if they are real people that the player is helping through this frightening situation, and the player becomes emotionally attached to them.

Characters

Ellie and Joel are very clearly fictional characters, but they are so realistic it is obvious that a large amount of time was put into their development. The same can be said for even the minor characters in the game; Tess, Marlene, and even Sam are given such fleshed-out personalities that are so realistic they can be attributed to a living person. In her review for Gamespot, Carolyn Petit describes the two main characters well:

“Perhaps nobody knows the dangers of loving others in this uncertain world better than Joel, the protagonist of The Last of Us. A hard, bitter man, Joel isn’t likable, but he is at least understandable, in large part because the dialogue in The Last of Us is so human and believable. And although that humanity comes through in all of the game’s major characters, it’s the teenager Ellie who is the game’s emotional heart. In contrast to Joel’s cynicism, Ellie is still capable of wide-eyed wonder. While Joel seems dead inside, Ellie is very much alive, and over the course of the game, neither Joel, nor you, can avoid growing attached to her.”

Having characters so realistic and so human makes the story that much more emotional for the player.

Gameplay

Gameplay is an important factor when reviewing any game, and The Last of Us handles it well. Choice-based gameplay allows for the player to have a more intense, interactive experience and the controls are basic enough for anyone to pick up a controller and learn to play. There are even choices when fighting; one can choose to sneak up on the infected and strangle them or stab them with a shiv, shoot them with a gun, shoot them with arrows, set them on fire, stun them with bricks, or simply sneak past them and avoid the confrontation completely. Minor puzzles that need to be solved and exploration of the numerous buildings in search of materials and weapons add even more variety to the mix, creating an overall fun and exciting experience.

Graphics

Graphics may not seem like a big deal, but imagine playing a game with a great story line and terrible picture quality. Fortunately, that is not a problem players of The Last of Us have to deal with. The graphics for this game are stunning, and it does not just stop with the characters and close environments. Unlike most roleplaying games, high graphics quality extends as far as the eye can see in any environment the player may be in. Not only does this make the game more realistic, but it makes it a more enjoyable experience; the art is beautiful to match the beautiful story line—and soundtrack.

Soundtrack

As if it is the icing on the cake, the music in The Last of Us (particularly the main theme) can make one emotional when they have not even played the game. The simple, acoustic guitar strums will remind any player of certain intense scenes and fill their heart with feelings of nostalgia and bittersweet sadness. The soundtrack alone can make a player want to replay the game, to experience the story one more time.

The Last of Us is a masterpiece in the video game world. Fans of The Road will find it an enjoyably interactive experience just as emotional as the novel it is often compared to, and will not regret spending their money on this game (or borrowing it from a friend). The Last of Us will rank high on lists for years to come and will forever hold a place in the hearts of players.

Neo-noir is a style often seen in modern motion pictures and other forms that prominently utilize elements of film noir, but with updated themes, content, style, visual elements or media that were absent in films noir of the 1940s and 1950s.

40. A Kiss Before Dying (1991) – James Dearden
39. Point Of No Return (1993) – John Badham
38. Unlawful Entry (1992) – Jonathan Kaplan
37. White Sands (1992) – Roger Donaldson
36. Narrow Margin (1990) – Peter Hyams
35. China Moon (1994) – John Bailey
34. Devil In A Blue Dress (1995) – Carl Franklin
33. The Game (1997) – David Fincher
32. Bad Influence (1990) – Curtis Hanson
31. Desperate Hours (1990) – Michael Cimino
30. This World, Then The Fireworks (1997) – Michael Oblowitz
29. New Jack City (1991) – Mario Van Peebles
28. Twilight (1998) – Robert Benton
27. Rush (1991) – Lili Fini Zanuck
26. Payback (1999) – Brian Helgeland
25. Best Laid Plans (1999) – Mike Barker
24. Miami Blues (1990) – George Armitage
23. Blink (1994) – Michael Apted
22. The Spanish Prisoner (1997) – David Mamet
21. State Of Grace (1990) – Phil Joanou
20. Deep Cover (1992) – Bill Duke
19. King Of New York (1990) – Abel Ferrara
18. Mulholland Falls (1996) – Lee Tamahori
17. Lost Highway (1997) – David Lynch
16. The Hot Spot (1990) – Dennis Hopper
15. Basic Instinct (1992) – Paul Verhoeven
14. Red Rock West (1993) – John Dahl
13. A Simple Plan (1998) – Sam Raimi
12. Homicide (1991) – David Mamet
11. One False Move (1992) – Carl Franklin
10. Fight Club (1999) – David Fincher
09. The Last Seduction (1994) – John Dahl
08. The Limey (1999) – Steven Soderbergh
07. Bad Lieutenant (1992) – Abel Ferrara
06. After Dark, My Sweet (1990) – James Foley
05. The Usual Suspects (1995) – Bryan Singer
04. Seven (1995) – David Fincher
03. L.A. Confidential (1997) – Curtis Hanson
02. The Silence Of The Lambs (1991) – Jonathan Demme
01. The Grifters (1990) – Stephen Frears

Marvel Studios has so far done a wonderful job with its movie properties, but some may not be aware of the “One Shot” series Marvel puts on DVD releases. Probably the more memorable One Shot was on the Iron Man 3 DVD, Agent Carter. This time around on the Thor: The Dark World DVD, we have the Marvel One-Shot: All Hail The King. Hit the jump to find out what I thought of this. A word of warning: here be some slight spoilers.

All Hail The King catches up with Trevor Slattery after the events of Iron Man 3 while he does time in Seagate Prison. Trevor is being interviewed by a documentary filmmaker in the aftermath of his being The Mandarin. The entirety of this short film takes place inside of said prison.

There are some great lines here. Trevor says things like “I’m not your meat puppet”, or his famous Mandarin line “You’ll never see… me… coming”. Or, the funny “Trevor Slattery, it’s a brand”. There are some great moments by the wonderful Sir Ben Kingsley. Sure, he’s hamming it up, but it’s just fantastic to watch. We even see Trevor’s theory on how an actor does research. Through all this, the loveable idiot Kingsley play has no clue what’s really going on.

The small vignette about Trevor’s failed CBS series titled Caged Heat is absolutely brilliant. There are so many gags here; from the note-for-note Magnum P.I. references to the 80’s aesthetic to the Mike Post music. It’s such a great little moment that just fits the overall funny atmosphere. If you look close, you’ll see a poster of Kingsley as King Lear in the background and the rather evenly stacked fan and hate mail boxes.

The thing is, Marvel packs so much into these short videos. All Hail The King is not much more than 11 minutes of actual runtime, but we get a nice beginning and ending. The plot device of Trevor being interviewed is a perfect fit for what takes place as the interview comes to a close. This might be worth the price of Thor: The Dark World alone. I sure do hope we see more of the character Trevor Slattery somewhere down the line. Perhaps in the next Avengers movie.

I won’t give anything away, but you’ll also get to see Sam Rockwell hilariously reprise his role as Justin Hammer. It seems clear he’s ad-libbing all the way, and the stuff is just great. You’ll also see some other inside references that feel like they might be taken up elsewhere in the Marvel Universe.

There are some small gripes I have about how freely a journalist might get a gun into any sort of prison, or how a gun without a silencer sounds like a gun with a silencer. But, those are small beans. This is fun. You’ll also want to know, “Who is Trevor Slattery?”

Marvel One-Shot: All Hail the King is directed by Drew Pearce and stars Sir Ben Kingsley, Scoot McNairy, and Sam Rockwell. This short film is included as a special feature on the Thor: The Dark World DVD release, due February 25, 2014.

ASMR doctor relieves your facial congestion, massages your skin and calms you for a deep sleep. If you enjoy this ASMR massage video, please like, comment & subscribe to support me. ASMR medical videos are for sleepy entertainment purposes only and should not be taken as actual medical advice.

Since I kind of want to provide my opinion about Thor: Love And Thunder (2022), this is what I’ll do. It’s an interesting film to review. The summer movie season of 2022 was disappointing, in my opinion. Therefore, it’s not surprising that Top Gun: Maverick grossed more than $1 billion at the box office in this dry summer season. After Doctor Strange In The Multiverse of Madness went to video, there was pretty much nothing else to see in theaters. Anyway, there were almost no new films that I wanted to see this summer. The only film that I really enjoyed watching is Doctor Strange In The Multiverse of Madness. I also got to see Jurassic World Dominion, Lightyear, Top Gun: Maverick, and Minions: The Rise Of Gru. None of these other films impressed me much, though I didn’t have a bad time watching any of them. Lightyear turned out to be rather good. I don’t like everything about it, but there’s enough in it to make me say that I had a pretty good time watching it. The direction, the animation, and the story are just fine. The character of Buzz Lightyear (voiced by Chris Evans) is appealing. His friendship with Sox, a robotic cat, is handled particularly well. Buzz was voiced by Evans and not by Tim Allen. This didn’t bother me because I don’t care about who voices a character as long as the performance is good. Evans did a good job voicing Buzz, and he sounds just like the Buzz in the Toy Story films. Minions: The Rise Of Gru turned out to be worse than Lightyear. I was expecting for it to be a good film, and this is why I eventually went to see it, but it turned out to be the worst film yet in the Despicable Me franchise. I think that Despicable Me 2 (2013) and Minions (2015) are the best films in the franchise, but I enjoyed watching all of them. The story in Minions: The Rise Of Gru isn’t really interesting, the new characters aren’t really appealing, the action is almost non-existent, and the comedy is mostly ineffective and silly. Still, the animation is superb and it’s the only redeeming quality of this somewhat disappointing film. It’s simply beautiful at times. The designs aren’t bad either, especially the designs of the Vicious 6. Thor: Love And Thunder was easily the biggest disappointment of the summer for me. I do like the trailers that got made for the film. The people that make trailers for films by Marvel Studios do a good job. The film itself, however, turned out to be easily the worst Marvel film so far. I didn’t expect Marvel to release a film this bad, but it happened. This is the first Marvel film that I don’t want to see again. I’d rather be apprehended by Elon Musk’s private right-wing militia than to see Thor: Love And Thunder again. Well, fine, the film is not that bad. But I definitely don’t look forward to seeing it again. What makes it bad is the fact that almost everything in it is played for laughs. Nothing can be taken seriously. There are too many jokes and too much silly stuff. I’d say that about a third, or at most half, of the comedy in the film is effective, but the rest is mostly cringeworthy. Christian Bale, as usual, attempted to deliver a good performance, but his performance got wasted on a film where it doesn’t belong. Since this is a Marvel film, the costumes and the special effects that got made for it are good as usual. But, again, they’re wasted on a misguided film. I don’t know if it was Taika Waititi’s intention to make the film this bad. It probably wasn’t. He was probably given too much freedom to do whatever he wanted and this has resulted in something farcical. I like every Thor film by Marvel that came before this one. Thor: Love And Thunder has a 64% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes. It doesn’t deserve this rating. The rating should be rotten, quite rotten. I’ve never trusted Rotten Tomatoes because of one simple reason. Most professional film critics in the West are not reliable. They are bought and paid for, they are politically motivated, or they simply don’t know what they’re talking about. Hollywood films have been getting worse for several decades already, but the professional film critics either don’t realize this or they don’t want to talk about this issue. Therefore, they award high scores to films that don’t deserve praise, they clobber films that don’t deserve to be clobbered, and they go about their jobs as if nothing has changed. This is why I almost never check what they have to say on Rotten Tomatoes. If Thor: Love And Thunder hadn’t had some propaganda in it, I think that its rating on Rotten Tomatoes would have been much lower. Unfortunately, many people simply repeat what they read on a website like Rotten Tomatoes. If a film is certified rotten on this website, they think that it’s a bad film. This is not how I think. But, anyway, since Thor: Love And Thunder is a film by Marvel Studios, I still went to see it in a theater. Not everything about it is bad. Some of the comedy works, especially at the beginning. The direction is misguided but fine. The performances by the actors are fine. But, overall, the film is a disaster because nothing in it can be taken seriously. In addition, the action is disappointing and almost non-existent. Of course, there is one thing that could have saved Thor: Love And Thunder in its present state, or at least partially redeemed it. This would have been an inclusion of Zeus’s planned orgy in the end credits scene. Or we could have at least been shown how Rich Evans defeats Thanos singlehandedly in an alternate universe. But instead what we got was Zeus talking to his son Hercules about killing Thor. How disappointing.

I recently got to finish playing two video games that I’ve had some trouble finishing. I began playing Suikoden II in the second half of 2020 on my Anbernic RG350m. The PlayStation emulator on the Anbernic RG350m is actually very good. I think that it plays PlayStation games better than ePSXe, which I have installed on my smartphone, on my tablet, and on my laptop. For example, Bushido Blade is unplayable on ePSXe for some reason, but it plays perfectly on the Anbernic RG350m. If you want to quick save on the Anbernic RG350m, you have to press the power button once when you’re playing in order to bring up the emulator menu. When I began to play Suikoden II, I wasn’t very impressed by the game. The graphics and the designs in the game are appealing, even beautiful at times, but they look like they belong in an RPG for the Sega Saturn or even for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. Therefore, since nothing hooked me at the beginning of the game, I lost interest in playing it and moved on to playing something else, like Machinarium, Silent Hill 2, Mega Man Zero, Sonic The Hedgehog, Another Code: Two Memories, Metal Gear Solid, Jeanne d’Arc, Death Jr., Fire Emblem: New Mystery Of The Emblem, and Final Fantasy XIII-2. These are just some of the games that I got to play in 2020, and I enjoyed playing all of them. Final Fantasy XIII-2, in particular, is one of my favorite games, and I got to play it for the second time in 2020. I also like Final Fantasy XIII and Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII. In my opinion, the so-called Lightning trilogy for the PlayStation 3 is very good, though it has its minor flaws. I probably played these games for the first time in 2015. I very much enjoyed playing them and they left a strong impression on me. Anyway, in 2021, I began to play Suikoden II again. This time I noticed that the battle system is interesting and that the enemies, especially the bosses, are designed well. Battles are definitely fun in Suikoden II. There is even an option to let your team fight automatically. Like many other old and famous Japanese RPGs, Suikoden II has a good story, with some truly memorable scenes. These scenes are often aided by Miki Higashino’s memorable music score. It’s too bad that I didn’t realize how great Suikoden II is until I finally decided to finish playing it this year. This game can be long, especially if you decide to recruit all of the 100 playable characters, but it’s easily one of the best RPGs for the PlayStation and one of the best video games ever. Another video game that I finally got to finish this year is Dark Souls II. When the motherboard of my Samsung Notebook 7 Spin ceased to function and had to be replaced, I was already playing the three downloadable DLCs for Dark Souls II. This happened several months ago. Before I began playing Dark Souls II, I had already beaten Dark Souls. Several of the bosses in Dark Souls were like brick walls for me for a time because I had to come up with new strategies in order to defeat them. These bosses were the Capra Demon, the Iron Golem, Ornstein and Smough, the Four Kings, Artorias the Abysswalker, and Black Dragon Kalameet. Almost all of the bosses in Dark Souls are challenging, but the ones that I’ve listed are particularly difficult to overcome. In order to defeat these bosses, I spent time on grinding for souls and on leveling up my character. Since grinding for experience in video games is a dull and time-consuming activity, I usually turn off the sound and instead listen to music or something else while I’m doing this. Still, whatever leveling up I did wasn’t enough. In addition, I spent some time looking for effective battle strategies on the internet. In order to defeat the Capra Demon, I had to switch from fighting with a halberd and a shield to fighting with a catalyst. The Capra Demon hits hard and he’s aided by two Undead Dogs. Therefore, in the small space where he has to be fought, I had to quickly run up the stairs and stand on the ledge that’s beside the stairs. This is where the Capra Demon can’t reach you. From the ledge, I could then cast magic and hit the dogs and the Capra Demon from a distance. In order to defeat the Iron Golem and Ornstein and Smough, I had to move a lot on the battlefield and attempt to dodge their attacks. Before that, I almost always relied on my strategy of blocking attacks with a shield, of trying to conserve stamina, and of striking when an opportunity arose. But the Iron Golem was the first boss that forced me to change my strategy. Because I spent time on leveling up my character, I could block the attacks of the Iron Golem with a shield, but the attacks still drained my stamina a lot. Therefore, I had to adapt to moving on the battlefield a lot. I didn’t run or roll yet, but I still had to constantly keep moving in order to evade the Iron Golem’s attacks. In order to defeat the Four Kings, I again had to come up with a new strategy. This battle has to be won quickly, and, therefore, I had to stop using a shield all the time and to keep attacking the boss with my halberd almost without pause and even without worrying about how much stamina I’m losing. So, what did my character look like? I went through the entire game wearing the Chain Set. Naturally, I upgraded this armor set to the max with titanite. I tried on other armor sets, but only for very brief periods. I simply like the look of the Chain Set. The shield that I used is the Heater Shield, and my weapon was the Halberd. I defeated almost every enemy in Dark Souls with this shield and halberd. I hit another brick wall when I had to fight Artorias the Abysswalker in the Artorias of the Abyss DLC. This time, leveling up my character simply didn’t work. I had to come up with a new strategy in order to defeat Artorias because he hits a lot and he hits very hard. I was forced to learn his move set, to dodge his attacks by rolling, and to strike him in the brief moments when an opportunity arose. I simply couldn’t rely on my shield during this fight. I had almost as much trouble defeating Black Dragon Kalameet. The dragon’s attacks, especially his breath of fire, hit very hard. It was difficult for me to find a way to defeat this dragon. Finally, after trying various things, I realized that I can avoid most of the dragon’s attacks by standing right in front of the boss or under it. And I could take him down by swinging my halberd. In this way, I was finally able to take down the dragon quite quickly. Artorias of the Abyss is a satisfactory addition to Dark Souls, but it contains the most difficult boss fights in the game. Some of the areas in the DLC are beautiful. The areas in Dark Souls are mostly grim and gothic but still beautiful. Anyway, when it comes to Dark Souls II, the bosses in the main game didn’t give me much trouble. The three DLCs, however, are another matter. After I fixed my laptop, and after I resumed playing Dark Souls II, I quickly hit brick walls in all three DLCs. In Crown of the Old Iron King, I finally reached the Fume Knight, who’s considered to be the toughest boss in the game. In Crown of the Ivory King, I reached Aava the King’s Pet, who’s actually the first boss of the DLC. In Crown of the Sunken King, I reached the area that’s guarded by Sanctum Knights. They can’t be hit with regular weapons. They even receive little damage from magic spells. Because of these difficulties, and the game developers at FromSoftware clearly wanted to make the DLCs more difficult than the main game, I stopped playing Dark Souls II and moved on to other things. So, after this break, and after returning to the game after a few months had passed, I was able to overcome the challenges. I defeated the Fume Knight the same way I defeated Artorias the Abysswalker, by learning his move set and by dodging his attacks. I took down Aava the King’s Pet after realizing that I can’t be hit by her attacks if I stay behind her or to the side of her. I got past the Sanctum Knights by hitting them with magic spells and by using a bow to take out the Sanctum Priestesses. This was a slow process, but it had to be done in order to progress. I was particularly satisfied after I defeated the Fume Knight. It took me more than a hundred attempts before I was finally able to take him down. Then I walked down the stairs, to the very bottom of Brume Tower, and entered the small room where the dead Nadalia, Bride of Ash sits, covered in ash. The crown was a glowing item and a loud metallic sound was emanating from it. Before taking the crown, I stood there for some time, listening to the sound, feeling quite satisfied by my victory and by how well the location is designed. Except for Majula, Brume Tower is my favorite location in Dark Souls II. I like the design of the tower and of its surroundings. Because many things in the tower are made out of iron, the place has a somewhat frightening look. The area where the Fume Knight has to be fought is at the bottom of the tower. You can stand there and look up at what’s above you. It’s an incredible sight. There’s falling ash. There are the hanging, gigantic iron soldiers. There’s the enormous tower itself. After I finished playing Crown of the Old Iron King, I read the description for every item that’s available in the DLC on the internet. I was fascinated by the story of what took place in Brume Tower. The armor set that I used for most of the game is Chreighton’s Set. The shield that I equipped is the Mirrah Shield and my weapon was the Dragonslayer’s Crescent Axe. Anyway, my feelings about Dark Souls II are mixed. It’s obviously slightly inferior to Dark Souls in almost every way, but there are still things in it that I like very much. The DLCs for it make this long game even longer than it already is. They also make it better. There’s definitely a big world to explore here. There are some fantastic sights in this game and some excellent music. The story interested me more than the story of Dark Souls. I felt a sense of satisfaction after I finished playing Dark Souls II. It’s one of the most memorable video games that I’ve played. Even with its shortcomings, it’s still one of the best video games of its generation, in my opinion. The Souls games dominated my playtime from the middle of 2021 until now. It’s not because it took long for me to finish them. It’s because I stopped playing them several times because of their difficulty. I reached new challenges after I resumed playing them and stopped playing again. But now I’m done.