Upload - Season 1 (2020)

Upload is ten episodes long and takes place in the future where technology has advanced at such a rapid pace that it now permeates all forms of society. There are self-driving cars, robots doing the shopping, and advanced AI. It doesn’t take that far enough into the future that things look futuristic, and there’s a mix of old and new, so it can look somewhat odd when a futuristic car drives past some old buildings.

The show follows Nathan, who is having what you might call a typical, albeit good, life. He’s successful enough to be comfortable with where he is, has a loving girlfriend, and is reasonably happy. Although it comes to an end when through some circumstances, he is forced to “upload”. Basically, his memories are copied onto a server and now he lives in a virtual life, in a virtual society. It feels like an aged care home, and it is heavily commercialized. It’s not all inclusive, and there are nickel and diming microtransactions.

While it seems great at first (and the in-show ads show how amazing a place it is, just like “heaven”), Nathan soon runs into questionable logic in the programming. It may seem fun in the beginning, but Nathan soon goes crazy. It’s hard for him to accept it when normal things like styling his hair don’t react to physical input. It’s all controlled by data and programming, which often breaks the illusion of a perfect life.

Understandably, Nathan isn’t too comfortable in his new state, and it explores some interesting concepts. Technically he’s dead, but he’s also alive. He still has his girlfriend, and there is still a virtual barrier despite some stopgaps like a suit that can give sensation. It presents interesting concepts on what a digital life would be, where your clothes magically just change, or food just appears and disappears. Although some of the visualizations are stretching it such as being able to get through unrendered out of bound areas.

The show presents the worst of what capitalism has to offer. There are microtransactions everywhere. The corporations are evil, serving only to extract as much profit out of you as possible. Your memories are deleted as soon as you cannot pay. The scary part is that you can see it happening. The circumstances that led up to Nathan’s current predicament are also suspicious, and this is constantly hinted every so often. Each episode has at least one cliffhanger or twist reveal.

Nathan gets a dedicated staff that is his “angel”, that helps him adjust to digital life and is a general help. For Nathan, he gets attached to Nora. Nora is a real person, and the two hit off. Nora, initially attracted physically to Nathan, starts to feel attracted to him through his memories, raising some interesting concepts of falling for someone via knowing them through their memories rather than through their person. Given Nathan already has a girlfriend, the one that’s currently keep him “alive”, this is quite the dilemma that he’s gotten himself in.

After the gradual reveal and teasing of Nathan’s past, it comes to light in the final episode. It’s a little bit intense, and sometimes, the show does a mood whiplash where it nonchalantly just shows something crazy or violent or horrible, but in such a way that it is kind of for laughs, and yet it is serious. It’s not a bad thing, as it gives the show its own unique identity but it’s something that does stand out. And as is usual for the season, the final episode finishes off with a big revelation. It’s not a happy ending, and it doesn’t finish off the major plot threads, but it feels significant.

Overall, Upload is an interesting show, and one that has an interesting premise and concept. The fact that you can make a copy of someone’s memories and upload them so that they theoretically have infinite life, and having that interact with the real world, is unique. Some of it doesn’t quite gel together, but putting its own twist on things especially with the overly excessive capitalism is a nice touch because it feels like it could happen… The subplot of Nathan’s predicament and how he got into it keeps the plot moving along, even though it’s probably not the most interesting plot thread in the show.

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Toy Review: Transformers Generations Legacy United Kakuryu (Core)

Review:  #847

Name:  Kakuryu

Brand:  Transformers

Allegiance:  Decepticon

Line:  Generations - Legacy: United

Year of Release:  2024

Size Class:  Core

Mold Status:  retool of Legacy United Slug

BEAST MODE:

Kakuryu is a retool of Legacy United Slug, and transforms into a triceratops.  It's a yellow one, so not exactly the most realistic.

He has a retooled tail so it looks somewhat stumpy and weird, plus, it colored blue, which clashes a lot with the yellow and white.

Above is a comparison against a Deluxe figure.  Kakuryu is a Core classed figure, so he's quite small.

The various robot weapons can combine into one and peg onto his back for storage.

There is little articulation here, he doesn't feature many joints, and his legs are effectively fixed.

It's an okay beast mode, to be honest, you're really only here for the combined mode anyway...

TRANSFORMATION:

One thing's for sure, at least this set isn't in want of more interesting transformations.  The front legs are the arms.  The back unfolds to become the legs, and then you fold the bottom half of the dinosaur's head down to reveal the robot head.

ROBOT MODE:

Kakuryu's robot mode is fine, although like the rest of the set, looks very much like a recolored version of the Dinobot it's original use was for.

Unfortunately, he carries a lot of kibble, and they're all situated on his back.

He features a new head sculpt at least, and looks very G1.  Although given that it is sculpted as part of the triceratops' head, it's like half the depth.

As a Core class, he remains quite small in robot mode, above is a comparison against Deluxe Siege Sideswipe.

Articulation is okay, he has joints for his head, shoulders, hips and knees.

Most impressively, he comes with some nice weapons, such as a gun and a huge axe.

The two weapons can be held in his hands, and the axe in particular looks really nice, it's not super oversized (especially given that it is more in scale for the combined mode).

The last piece which is the tail, is the combined mode's head, and that just pegs onto his back.

He doesn't have ankle tilts, but doesn't really need them at this size.  Unfortunately, the lack of elbows really hurts.

Surprisingly, a strong robot mode that isn't too compromised by its need to combine.

OVERALL:

Kakuryu is one of the better molds in the set.  He isn't too compromised in both modes, just that he's still very much inspired by the original usage of the mode.

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Sine Mora EX (PS4)

Sine Mora EX is a shoot ‘em up game that was originally released in the generation prior. This release included some touch ups to the graphics, English voiceovers and additional content. Given the genre, it is not for everyone, but there’s just something simply satisfying with shooting everything up on the screen. It’s a sidescrolling shoot ‘em up, where enemies come in from the sides, and your ship can generally move in any direction while the level is automatically scrolling.

You control an airplane, and your primary weapon shoots bullets with unlimited ammo. You can either mash the button or hold it down for rapid fire (for advanced players, mashing it is faster). Perhaps a unique part of this is that it is rendered in 3D, so it gives it a unique look. There is a secondary weapon that differs depending on the plane / character you’re playing as, and it is usually much stronger and useful to clear out enemies or wipe out a section of the boss’s health. You’ll have limited ammo for this.

As you are destroying enemies, they might drop pickups. These include time extensions, weapon upgrades, ammo for the secondary weapon, shields, or the ability to slow down time. Yes, you can slow down time which can help beginners dodge the crazy bullet hell scenarios. The plane doesn’t really have a health bar, rather it is tied to the timer. Each level has the timer counting down which you primarily extend via defeating enemies and sometimes getting a pickup. Taking damage will decrease the timer.

The game looks and feels great, and the controls feel natural. Each of the stages are structured in a similar way where you defeat normal enemies, before facing against a boss. The bosses have fantastic designs and are a highlight of the game. The difficulty in Normal mode is manageable for beginners but there are some cheap sections. Instant kill sections are extremely frustrating, and you don’t know it is instant death until you hit it. Sometimes there are so many things happening onscreen that you don’t even know what happened. Each section has a checkpoint, and depending on the difficulty you selected, you can retry the checkpoint several times before you must restart the level. Dying during a boss battle will send you right back at the beginning though.

On Normal, the timer isn’t too bad, and you get to carry your weapon upgrades, which will either increase the rate of fire or the spread of the bullets, from stage to stage… until you run out of continues. Then you’re out of luck and must start the stage from the lowest weapon level, which can be a challenge to manage both the timer and to level up the weapons again; this can depend on your luck. At the end of each stage, you’ll get a score based on your performance.

Most of the bosses are cool to play against, although definitely a few where they are designed with frustration and deaths in mind. You’ll have to retry those a lot, and it’s annoying when they fire away a ton of weapons and you’ll have to rely on trial and error. That said, when you try and practice enough times, and get through it, there is a sense of satisfaction there. That’s the thing, this game is designed for repeated plays, so while there’s not that much content, you can still get a lot out of it.

The unique thing is that this is a shoot ‘em up with a story. The story is told via a combination of text, and some light visuals. It sets up the scene with a father trying to take revenge on the one who killed his son in the war, and an alternate viewpoint taking place at the same time where the last survivors of the Enkie race is fighting to destroy the Empire. It’s serves more as an excuse to connect the stages together, but it can be quite interesting… if it was told in a better and more coherent way. There are a lot of good concepts but ultimately can be confusing to digest. The story isn’t long, since it’s comprised of seven stages, and on Normal difficulty, it will take around two to three hours to complete.

That’s only the start though since the game has a few other modes for you to explore. The first is playing through the story again in Challenge difficulty will unlock an alternate ending. Then there are Arcade, Score and Boss modes, which are all self-explanatory. There are achievements within the game itself, where completing them will raise your rank, although the only benefit from that is unlocking a Trophy.

Overall, Sine Mora EX is a good shoot ‘em up and is not a bad entry to the genre for beginnings. Its presentation is beautiful, and it plays well. The stages are fun, although the content is low if you’re looking for some meatier, as the game is designed more for repeated playthroughs to improve your skills, rather than present something new all the time. For its low price though, that’s fine.

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Toy Review: Transformers Generations Legacy United Goryu (Core)

Review:  #846

Name:  Goryu

Brand:  Transformers

Allegiance:  Decepticon

Line:  Generations - Legacy: United

Year of Release:  2024

Size Class:  Core

Mold Status:  retool of Legacy United Grimlock

BEAST MODE:

Goryu, a remold of Grimlock, was what this mold was always meant to be.  He transforms into a green and white T-rex, and the green is one of those puke looking shades.

Given the reuse of the mold, he still very much looks like a green Grimlock, which is a shame that this character wasn't given priority.

As a Core class, Goryu is small, above is a comparison against a Deluxe figure.

The robot weapon can peg sideways onto his back.

Being such a small size, he comes with plenty of compromise.  In beast mode, that mainly comes in the form of an odd shape, given that his robot legs are huge and stick out the back here.

Otherwise, this is a passable beast mode.

TRANSFORMATION:

Transformation is fairly easy, as you would expect.  The back unfolds to form the robot legs.  The beast legs are the robot arms, and you just need to rotate them so that the fists face the right way.  The torso of the beast mode then unfolds into two halves to reveal the robot torso and the head.

ROBOT MODE:

The robot mode here is also still very much Grimlock, but it is a case of close enough is good enough.

There are proportion issues here due to the small size, and the fact that it needs to be a combiner as well.  With all the joints at this size, he can feel a bit floppy and insubstantial.

He gets a new head though, to help solidify the character.

Above is a comparison against a Deluxe figure to give you a sense of his size.

Articulation is probably his weakest part, even for a Core class figure.  He doesn't have any elbow joints, which is a big sin...

He comes with two weapons, a club, and a gun that was formed from his tail.

He can hold both in his hands, and they look semi decent.  He actually holds the gun upside down to reveal the two barrels.

He lacks ankle tilts as well, not that you'll expect them at this size.

An okay robot mode, there are a lot of flaws.

OVERALL:

Goryu is an okay figure.  His strength is basically that this is a character you don't really expect to get an update, and it's also a combiner.  You'd wish that they could have made him at least Deluxe size (given how small Deluxes are nowadays as well) as there are too many compromises trying to make a combiner in the Core size class.

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