Episode 205 - The Gentlemen, It Ends With Us, Outlaws, The Killer, And More!

This week Kevin and Lauren cover It Ends With Us, The Killer, Didi, The Gentlemen, Stalker, and Star Wars Outlaws.
Lauren opens the show with the wildly successful, It Ends With Us. She gives a decent review and, of course, the subject of behind the scene drama comes up. That aside, the review is solid so it's worth a watch.
Next up, Kevin talks about the new remake of the John Woo classic, The Killer. There's definitely some comparisons to the original (obviously) and the spiritual successor, The Replacement Killers. All in all, the movie is... fine. To be honest, you're better off catching the original or The Replacement Killers.
When the conversation turns back to Lauren, she talks about the new film, Didi. It's sort of a film about nothing, but a great slice of life in the early 2000's. Having been within a few years in age at the time, Lauren is a great reviewer for this. She enjoyed it quite a bit and it won awards at Sundance, so it's worth a view!
Kevin then throws a quick shoutout for Terminator Zero before moving on to The Gentlemen, on Netflix. It's like Weeds, but British!! But seriously, it's a very Guy Ritchie show and very well done. Theo James is a great lead and the show is just a lot of chaotic fun and there's a second season coming.
We then go on a trip to the theater when Lauren talks about the magic show, Stalker, which is produced by the epic duo, Penn and Teller. She very much enjoyed the show which is now bowing in NYC, so the hope is that goes on tour sometime in the near future.
Kevin closes out the show with the rare video game discussion. This time it's about the recently released Star Wars Outlaws. As a big time nerd, he absolutely loves this game. It's a fantastic journey into the world of Star Wars. It does have it's flaws, but they are outweighed by the sheer enjoyability of the game itself.
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[@BASS_the_3rd]

SW Outlaws: this could have been great. Except it's a bit too Ubisoft. Even though Massive made it.
Generally speaking this game suffers from the same problems that hurt the Assassin's Creed games. The world building and characters are fun, relatable and likable, the environments do a great job of making you feel like you're in the SW universe, both top marks.
But the gameplay becomes so repetitive, so early on that the first 3/4 of the game are a slog. It's basically run and fetch missions for roughly 15 hours of gameplay. Mostly based on stealth, so each one takes a bit of time. You can choose to go gunsakimbo if you wish, but the shooting mechanics and systems are less than intuitive, reminiscent to me of something like Mass Effect 1.
The final 1/4 of the game is amazing, almost pure Star Warsian joy. But, by this time I really just wanted the game to be over. And that is unfortunate.
I'm not going to go into the stuff about the facial animations and all that, we knew what it looked like from the trailers, I bought it anyways. They got my money. Though I can't bring myself to say that I feel I got my money's worth.
Also, losing credits when you die is an awful mechanic in a game. It's like a stupidity charge. I don't think I've seen anything like that since Warframe.

[@allpopnoculture]

I feel you on the credits thing. That blows. But I did not have the same experience. I loved this game. It’s an 8.5/10 for me. I was just happy the whole time. Even when the graphics were off, I loved it. I also agree that the last 1/4 is the best bit, but I’m still going back in and upgrading my abilities, blaster, and ship