<![CDATA[Low Five Productions - Cole\'s Journal]]>

<![CDATA[Low Five Productions - Cole\'s Journal]]>Wed, 05 Apr 2023 22:02:11 -0700Weebly<![CDATA[Mob Psycho 100 – A Good Time]]>Thu, 02 Mar 2017 08:00:00 GMThttp://www.lowfive.ca/coles-journal/mob-psycho-100-a-good-time

I was watching a new YouTube channel a week ago recommended to me by Greg, called Super Eyepatch Wolf. In it, he doesreally in-depth analysis of different anime. Some of his most popular videos are Why You Should Watch X (X being a favorite anime of his).

They are very well though out, and interesting videos ranging from 20min to 50 min long. If you watch one you will probably end up watching the anime he is analyzing, and appreciating it even more because of his video. Finding this channel came at a perfect time because I was looking for a new anime to enjoy. I stumbled across his video on Mob Psycho 100 (MB100) and two days later I had finished the first season. It was a blast!

In the universe of MB100 there are malevolent spirits that haunt places, harm humans, and can even take control of them. There are also people born with psychic abilities that can see, and fight against these spirits. The main character of this show Shigeo Kageyama, or Mob, is a very self-conscious teenager in high-school with no physical gifts or other social talents that would help him become popular.

However, he is likely the strongest psychic in existence. Much like One Punch Man, Mob can defeat everything he comes into contact with, without barely trying. That of course could be very dull, but the interesting part about this show, however, is the characters. Mob is shy about his psychic abilities, and doesn’t feel they are any more special then someone who can sing well, or play an instrument.

He just wants to fit in, and make friends, so he is determined to work on other areas of himself to improve.Obviously things in the plot transpire that force him to use his powers, but it is this humble lack of confidence that is really endearing to the viewer.

Another cool mechanic of this show is Mob can lose control. When he does, his powers take over and crazy shit happens. He is always worried about hurting others by losing control which is part of the reason he locks his emotions away. However, when he does lose it, boy is it fun to watch.

The show does this in a unique way that helps further build the tension for the viewer. When things are happening to Mob that are frustrating or emotional, a percentage counter pops up on screen and shows us how close to 100% he is because at that point he will lose control. That’s just Mob, the other characters in this show are just as endearing once they are developed.

The world building is quite fun, and leaves you wanting to learn more about this crazy universe, and you love all the wacky side characters by the end of the first season too.

Mob’s mentor is especially awesome, he is essentially a con artist with no actual psychic abilities, yet he claims through his ads to be the strongest in the world. You expect him to be sleazy, but a juxtaposition is created by his strong sense of morals, and how he coaches and assists Mob. It is really well done.

My only issue is the choice of direction for the animation. It jumps around quite a bit between motion and stills, realistic crisp animation and cartoonish animation. This can be a little jarring in the beginning, but you get used to it quite fast.

I definitely recommended this anime, especially if you liked One Punch Man and are waiting for its inevitable return. It is similar in some ways and yet totally unique and different. It helps, as well, that it is smart and funny. It definitely had me laughing out loud at certain parts.

Let me know what your thoughts are, did you love it, hate it, think it was just OK?

]]><![CDATA[Voltron Season 2]]>Wed, 01 Mar 2017 08:00:00 GMThttp://www.lowfive.ca/coles-journal/voltron-season-2

I really enjoyed the first season. It was mindless fun you could sit down, turn your brain off, and just enjoy. Power Rangers in space with characters and humor similar to Avatar, what’s not to like? The first season gave us awesome character development, world building (universe building), and a great sense of foreboding for things to come. I eagerly anticipated the second season, and watched it right away when it came out. Was it as good as the first?

The second season is less light-hearted, and explores less of the universe than the first. It starts with a narrow escape from Zarkon, and moves on from there primarily focusing on the need to defeat him. We get a little more character development, and the Paladins, must learn to connect further with their lions in order to defeat Zarkon.

It is still a fun season, but I did not nearly enjoy it a s much as the first. It seemed like a middle novel in a trilogy, there to carry the plot forward, but without much substance to really get into. Another problem that was apparent in the first season, but becomes even more apparent in the second is the use of Deus Ex Machina in nearly every conflict.

Hey we are in a dire situation, oh wait, we have semi sentient magical lions that will suddenly have an ability appear that we didn’t know about just when we would need it… without having to work for it… That is not good story telling, and as a viewer it starts to become annoying. There is no sense of accomplishment in watching the Paladins gain the abilities, and at the same time there is no tension in the fights because you know that the magic spaceship lions will have a solution.

The second season is definitely more about the characters than the plot. Which ends up working because each of the characters in this show are great.

The relationships and humour are very well done, and still progressing. The characters are really what keep you watching. I would definitely gives season 2 a go, especially if you liked season 1. They flow nicely into each other and are easily binged.

Let us know what your thoughts on season 2 were, or the show in general.

]]><![CDATA[Hannibal Season 2 – I’m Done]]>Tue, 21 Feb 2017 08:00:00 GMThttp://www.lowfive.ca/coles-journal/hannibal-season-2-im-done

I’ve been up to quite a bit in recent weeks, entertainment wise anyways. I’ve taken a hiatus from writing because I have been working on a side project. Hopefully more on that in the near future. In my next few journal entries this week I’m going to do a quick recap on what I’ve been watching lately.

Hannibal Season 2

After finishing the first season I never intended to watch the second. However, once I did some research for the article I wrote on the first season, I was drawn in to give it a try. I mean people were saying it was one of the best seasons of a show they had ever seen, period. That’s a lot of hype, but did it live up to it?

It does not, sorry to fans of the show. I will give you that the first two or three episodes were good, but then it goes back to becoming completely unbelievable. To me that is the part that murders this show for me (pun intended haha). For example, Hannibal is somehow able to get into a court house, murder a judge in his office, and then take the time to set up a ridiculous display of the body in the court room, all without anyone ever noticing. Have you ever been to a court house? There are police everywhere, cameras, metal detectors, locked rooms people have to buzz you into. One does not simply stroll in and kill someone, and then have the time to set up the body in an elaborate way, all the while leaving no evidence behind.

The story telling gets worse as the season goes on, as if the writers are writing this week to week and are not really sure where the story is going, apart from the goal “how can we shock the audience this week?”. I put this show down with a couple episode left, completely disinterested.

Of course there are positives, the acting is still amazing, the cinematography, again, is used superbly – setting the perfect tone for each episode. However, my overall verdict is to skip this show. Read the books, watch the movies, and from what I’ve read about it go watch True Detective instead. That is next on my watch list. Actually if you want an amazing gritty detective show, go watch Luther on Netflix. I highly recommend that show!

]]><![CDATA[Trollhunters – Worth the Watch]]>Wed, 25 Jan 2017 08:00:00 GMThttp://www.lowfive.ca/coles-journal/trollhunters-worth-the-watch

Recently, I was looking for something lighthearted and fun to watch. I stumbled across Netflix’s new show Trollhunters. It turned out to be both those things with the bonus of being a lot of fun!

The show takes place in a world where trolls live underground, and humans are unaware of their existence. One day a special troll (the Trollhunter) with a unique set of given abilities, is killed and a human boy stumbles across the stone rubble that remains of the trolls body.

The former trolls magic amulet chooses the boy to be the next Trollhunter. A title a human has never held. The show then follows the boy learning about troll society, and all the creatures and magic he was unaware of before, while simultaneously trying to live a normal high-school experience, and stopping the evil trolls from rising from their imprisonment.

The show is awesome for a few reasons. The first is the cast of characters. The two mentors assigned to help Jim (the boy with the new mantle) are hilarious. Blinky voiced by Kelsey Grammer is especially funny and at times very profound. Aaarrgghh voiced by Fred Tatasciore is great in his own way too. He is given a dark past that contrasts well with the great chemistry between Jim’s best friend Toby Domzalsk. Toby plays a great sidekick, there for comedy relief and to help push the main character when he needs it.

The second thing that makes this show good is the fact that it is not episodic, each episode builds upon the last and continues the story. I greatly appreciate this, you actually feel rewarded as a viewer for paying attention because in later episodes things will come to light that started a few episodes back, and there are some great ah-huh moments.

The one big flaw that Greg actually brought to my attention when we were talking about this show a couple weeks ago is with the main character. Once he pointed it out though I definitely had to agree with him.

The story is about a high-school aged boy, not popular, that takes care of his mother because his father/her husband walked out on them when Jim was still young. Jim stumbles upon this crazy new world, and is thrown right into the center of it, expecting to be a savoir and do battle with giant stone trolls and magical creatures he has never heard of. Whats the flaw in this? He can. The main character of the story has no flaws. His is good at everything, almost right out of the gate. Some how his cooking skills directly translate to fighting with a sword. This makes him the least interesting character in the show, and so you end up continuing to watch the show for the cool things he does, and for the other characters, but not really caring so much about Jim. My counter to Greg’s argument at the time was that the amulet wouldn’t have chosen him if he wasn’t good at everything, however, this is a weak argument for there are many flaws a person can have that they later have to overcome, giving the viewer a sense of character growth and relate-ability that don’t have to deal with fighting ability.

That being said, the other characters, the world building, and the plot more then make of for this flaw, and it is a highly entertaining show that I would recommend watching.

]]><![CDATA[Hannibal – Worth Devouring?]]>Wed, 11 Jan 2017 08:00:00 GMThttp://www.lowfive.ca/coles-journal/hannibal-worth-devouring

I just finished the first season of Hannibal the television series. It’s dark, morbid, and probably one of the most gruesome shows ever on television. Hannibal is loosely based around the book The Red Dragon by Thomas Harris. The story surrounds FBI agent Jack Crawford, brilliant profiler Will Graham, and of course Hannibal Lecter, all characters from the book. For a good show, I found it hard to finish that first season.

The show starts out seemingly similar to Criminal Minds. Jack Crawford brings on special agent Will Graham to help profile and solve a string of murders.

Will’s brain works a little differently than most people, and because of this he is a fantastic profiler, but is a bit unstable. Hannibal is hired as Will’s psychiatrist to make sure he doesn’t become what he hunts. From here, I expected an episodic show like CSI, or Criminal minds, but instead (and way better in my opinion) the show is all linked together, as one episodes events directly effect the subsequent episodes.

This was great in the beginning, and my girlfriend and I binged through the first half of the season. However, as the season went on our interest began to wane, ending with me watching the last episode out of boredom as my girlfriend read a book through it haha. Why was this though? A few things come to mind.

First off, the serial killers become a little unbelievable. We start off with one that is killing girls that look like his daughter. OK, not too much of a stretch. Then we have one that carves his victims into angels, turning their flesh into angel wings. It’s starting to get a little far fetched here, but for this show, Ill still allow it.

Next, a guy who keeps his victims alive, buries them in shallow graves, and turns them into mushroom gardens. There’s even a guy who kills someone, cuts open their throat, treats their vocal cords, and then shoves a cello neck down their mouth, so he can “play” them. You can see the writers in your mind having to think of ways to ramp up the killers methods to keep the show interesting and to differentiate itself from other serial killer catching shows.

However, in doing that they lose my suspension of disbelief. I would not want to live in this State, that’s for sure. There are so many serial killers that FBI agents coming across these scenes are not even phased by them,. It’s as if they are in fact weekly occurrences. If killings like the ones portrayed in this show happened in our world, they would be international news. They seem to make little impact in the world the show takes place.

Another thing that starts to lose the viewer is the dialogue. Everyone seems to speak philosophically, and in long-winded, deep metaphors.

I have friends that are psychologists. They do not talk like that. No one talks like that. Even some of the questions and phrases the psychiatrists use in the show, real ones would never say. Real psychiatrists and psychologists don’t say “and how does that make you feel?”. Every time I heard that in the show I would cringe haha.

Lastly, the lacklustre motivation, and omnipotence granted to Hannibal detracts from the show, and gives it almost a magical fantastical feel, rather than the realistic, gritty crime police procedural the the show is based off of.

Why does Hannibal kill certain people, and mess with the main character? Is it something intelligent and logical? No, he does it just to see what happens. Now I get that a killer like this would be hard to catch, but not that interesting to watch. He’s also basically all knowing, and can get anywhere he wants in the show, as long as it’s convenient to the story.

As well, not only is he a brilliant surgeon and psychiatrist, but hr is also an expert in hand to hand combat. Oh, and did I mention he also has mass wealth at his disposal, so much so that money seems to be no object to him.

There are some great things about this show too. The acting and cinematography are very well done. Although there is an over obsession with door shots. So many of the scenes are opening, closing and walking through doors… curious.

If you’ve made your way through Criminal Minds, and are looking for something similar to binge, definitely check this out. It is currently on Netflix.

If you can get past some of the points I mentioned above, I bet you will love this show. After doing a bit of research for this article, people have mentioned that the second season is some of the best TV they have ever seen, so maybe I will have to give it a chance on a rainy day. Have you watched this show? What were your thoughts?

]]><![CDATA[The OA – Binge Worthy]]>Wed, 04 Jan 2017 08:00:00 GMThttp://www.lowfive.ca/coles-journal/the-oa-binge-worthy

A couple weeks ago I was looking for a new show to watch when out of the blue a friend texted me, and told me I needed to watch a new Netflix series called The OA. I trust her opinion, and so Christmas Day I started watching it, and was enthralled right away. The OA is a deep and heartfelt story, wrapped around belief, mental illness, a struggle to to be understood, and to make a difference – common themes among all the main characters.

I will try not to spoil it, because I do think it’s worth watching! The episodes always end with you wanting to know more (and the last unfortunately is no different).

he story is about a young woman Nina, aka Prairie, aka The OA, she’s been missing for over seven years. The show opens with a cell phone camera shot of a blonde woman jumping off a bridge. It then cuts to her in a hospital; we can see that she has strange scars on her back, and she does not want to be touched or to tell the doctors anything.

Her mother and father, find out where she is and show up. She doesn’t recognise them, until her mother walks over to her bed and grabs OA’s hands and places them on her own face. A confused nurse (and audience) asks the father what’s going on, and he explains that when she went missing she was blind. Intrigued yet? I was.

OA is taken home, and lets on she is fully aware of what happened to her and where she was for the entire time she has been gone, but refuses to tell the FBI or her parents. We know she wants to get back to where she was (wherever that is), and enlists the help of a bully after they form a bond during and unsettling seen with a dog.

She needs five people who are strong and brave, and he is to bring them to her. Series of events happen and OA has her five band of misfits. She begins telling them a tale in an abandoned home. An unbelievable tale filled with growing up in Russia, coming to America as a young girl, being adopted, trying to find her father, being captured and detained, near death experience, supernatural abilities, falling in love, getting her sight back, dying over and over, and much more.

The show is a roller coaster, and definitely hits you in the feels on occasion. You’re left the whole time wondering, if this masterfully told story actually happened or is she making it up?

It does a great job of holding its cards close, and forcing the audience to think and guess about things before telling you about them.

The one thing I will say is I found the ending unsatisfying. Now that is not to say it was bad, just unsatisfying, because it was definitely exciting and seemingly came out of nowhere. It felt as if the writers chickened out in the end, not being able to commit to either of the stories projected outcomes. You’re left with many questions, and the audience is forced to draw their own conclusions. However, that is also one of the reasons why this show is great, because I am still thinking about it.

It is brilliantly shot, and there is so much detail that it requires you to think back and piece things together that you saw before once you have new information from later episodes. This is not a show that you will watch and forget, moving on to the next one. It will stick in your mind for weeks to come.

I also don’t think they should do a season 2. You’re left with a lot of questions, but none that would really warrant a second season, and if you did force a second season the tonal change and shift in the actual themes and plot of the story would be jarring, especially once they chose which route to actually take the story. You are going to alienate half your audience that was wanting the story to go the other way.

There are some great fan theories on this show that really make you think about it in a different way, so after watching it, and having some time to digest it in your thoughts, go ahead and check those out.

Have you seen it, or are you going to now? Let us know what your impressions were in the comments below or on our Facebook wall.

]]><![CDATA[Stories: The Path of Destinies Review]]>Thu, 15 Dec 2016 08:00:00 GMThttp://www.lowfive.ca/coles-journal/stories-the-path-of-destinies-review

I mentioned this before, but when you purchase a PlayStation Plus membership, you get access to 2 “free” games on the first Tuesday of every month. Usually they are some sort of indie plat-former, but sometimes they release top games. For instance, this year I downloaded NBA 2K16 and Tropico 5, not too shabby.

I end up playing these free games quite a bit because they are usually short, fun, and require no great commitment. You can bounce in and out of them between watching a show, or writing in my case. I reviewed The Deadly Tower of Monsters last month, and thought that I would continue reviewing one of these games every month. This time the two games are Stories: The Path of Destinies and, Invisible. Stories sounded more interesting to me so that’s the one I’ve been playing, and it’s been good.

“Stories: The Path of Destinies is an action-RPG set in a vibrant fairytale universe filled with floating islands, majestic airships, and colorful magic. Reynardo, ex-pirate and unintentional hero, suddenly becomes the last line of the defense against the mad Emperor and his countless ravens. Can he come up with a plan that won’t blow up in his face, for a change?

n Stories, each choice you make takes Reynardo into a unique narrative. From tongue-in-cheek takes on heroic adventures to dark, Lovecraftian scenes, Stories’ repertoire is as diverse as it is action-packed.

But Reynardo’s fateful decisions won’t always come easy: Sometimes retrieving a weapon lost at the beginning of time means sacrificing the life of an old friend. But with so many choices to make, so many potential dire destinies, wouldn’t it be great to be able to come back in time, learn from your mistakes and find the one true path.”

A lot of times when you’re playing games that have a choice based system you’re left to wonder what might have been? With Stories, you don’t have to wonder because after you get to the end, you go back to the beginning with the new knowledge gained from that play through. You can then make different decisions.

This is quite fun in the beginning, and the game is not too long so you want to keep playing the different story lines to see what happens. There are 24 different endings in fact. However, this is also its problem.

You end up doing the same thing over and over, seeing the same locations over and over, and without the ability to skip dialogue, you end up hearing the same thing over and over. This becomes quite tiring, and it’s replay value definitely goes down.

The fighting in Stories is really fun!…in the beginning Haha (you can see a pattern forming). It’s a slasher game, but you have powers that help you fight including a hook shot, slowing down time, and dashing at super speeds. I should also mention you get different swords to forge and level up (although there are only 4 and the each only level up 2 times). They have different abilities that help you defeat enemies quicker, and you also use them as keys to open up different areas of the maps. The actual combat feels almost like a batman game where you are in the center of a bunch of enemies bouncing around defending yourself from attacks from all angles.

Once you have that down the game throws in different enemies that have to be defeated certain ways, explode, or power up other enemies. This adds a new level of challenge and keeps the fighting entertaining. That is until you level up Reynardo to the point where he negates the challenges of the new opponents.

For example, one of the most annoying and challenging bad guys is ravens with big shields; you either need to throw another raven into them or hook shot them and rip the shield off. This can take time and leaves you open to attack, but it also adds a level of strategy to an encounter. However, later in the game you get a gem that allows you to hit Ravens that are carrying shields, and then the fighting returns to how it was at the beginning of the game, fairly mindlessly bouncing around killing everything in site, not having to really pay attention.

Some other things I really enjoyed about this game is the narration. It’s superb. The voice actor does a great job, and it’s very funny with so many great puns, and references to recent pop culture.

That alone makes this game play worthy and engaging. The art and visuals of the game are awesome, and the maps they built (although not very many) are intricate and fun to explore.

Despite it’s flaws, this game is a lot of fun. Like I mentioned above the great things about it are also the problem though. You get to go back and redo old decisions, but this becomes tiresome. The fighting and level up system are engaging, but you can get to a point where the fighting becomes too easy. All in all, I would rate this a definite download while it’s free. Have fun beating it 4 or 5 times (takes a minimum of 4 to learn everything) and then put it down and move on.

]]><![CDATA[Pokemon Moon]]>Wed, 07 Dec 2016 08:00:00 GMThttp://www.lowfive.ca/coles-journal/pokemon-moon

I’m a grown man, and I still play Pokemon… Sue me, I grew up with these games. Haha When I was in elementary school I fixed an original Game Boy a kid gave me, so that I could play the first Pokemon game – Red (the best version!). I continued to play that game on long family trips, when we were stuck in the car for hours.

I did that for years. I even had a game-shark so I could cheat and start the game off with Mewtwo. Then I stopped, and never picked up any of the new versions. To me there were only 151 Pokemon. That’s until a couple years ago when the original Pokemon show came on Netflix, and my roommate at the time started watching it. I had such nostalgia that I went out the next night after we binged a ton of episodes, and not only bought the newest game at the time, Pokemon Y, but also a Nintendo 3Ds XL. It was a blast playing through that game. I had the best team! And I challenge anyone who says other wise! I skipped buying and playing Ruby and Sapphire because they seemed too similar to X and Y. However, when I started to read about Sun and Moon I knew I had to play it.

Moon or Sun?

Naturally, I found myself at a Walmart standing in front of the Nintendo games looking at Sun and Moon, not knowing which to purchase. On a whim I sent a buddy the cryptic text “Sun or Moon”. Having know idea what I was talking about he replied “Moon… Because fighting evil by moonlight.” I still have no idea what that means haha, but needless to say I’ve been making my way through Pokemon Moon, and it is great!

Aloha!

This time we find ourselves as a new trainer that’s just moved to the Alola region: collection of 4 islands that resemble Hawaii in the real world. A major change in Alola from every other region in the Pokemon universe is the fact that there are no gyms. Instead we have island challenges. I was weary at first, but this actually turns out to be an awesome change.

The island challenges act just like gym battles, however, they allow for way more variety. As you progress through the game you don’t get bored of doing them. Some of the challenges are silly, but that makes for a fun and memorable experience. For instance, there is a challenge where you are on top of a volcano watching 3 Marowak’s dance, and you have to tell what the difference between the dances are before you can move on to the battle. It was ridiculous but fun haha.

My A-Team (Love it when a plan comes together…)

Incineroar

Formantis

Boldore

Toucannon

Hariyama

Pikachu

Maybe three of these will make up my final team. Not a single dragon Pokemon, good water Pokemon, or starter from any of the other games!

Battle Time!

There also seems to be even more battling in this game. Every where you go there are trainers that want to fight. Even in towns, and I enjoy the fact that you can catch Pokemon in towns now. Another fun mechanic (and annoying at times, but it just adds to the challenge) is the fact that wild Pokemon will call for help.

So you’ve been working Oranguru’s health down so you can catch it, and before you can throw the pokeball he calls for help and now it’s two on one. It can make catching Pokemon annoying but at the same time it is a great way to gain even more experience for levelling up your team.

Favorite Starter

The starters in this game are pretty cool, my Incineroar or Joe as I call him, is a beast. A bipedal cat that is about as tall and heavy as me in real life, and shoots fire from it’s stomach. Pretty badass! However, I prefer my fire/psychic starter from Y. Delphox is just plain OP, and is probably my favorite Pokemon (sorry Charmander). I’ve been hoping I would some how be able to get her in this game.

Speaking of starters, I really appreciated the appearance of the very first person to ever give me a Pokemon, Professor Oak. It really helped tie the games together, and truly make it feel like all the games are connected. He is there to study the regional variations of Pokemon, which is also something new for this game. You can get things like an ice Sandshrew… so cool, and a nice touch!

Conclusion

Overall I would give this game a great rating, and am definitely looking forward to seeing what else it has in store for me. As Greg would say in his podcast, I will definitely ‘hit continue’ on playing this game. Let us know what your thoughts are on the game. Which one is your favorite?

]]><![CDATA[You Should Listen to Podcasts]]>Thu, 01 Dec 2016 08:00:00 GMThttp://www.lowfive.ca/coles-journal/you-should-listen-to-podcasts

You should listen to podcasts. I know they’re not a new thing. Podcasts have technically been around since about 2004, but I’ve found that people are still not taking advantage of this medium as much as they should.

I’m guilty of only recently (within the last year) starting to listen to them myself, but as you can tell from my articles, I love to learn and this is just another great and convenient way to do that. For those who don’t know, a podcast is essentially a talk radio show that you can download or stream and listen to at your convenience.

The ease in which one can create and distribute this content has led to a library of shows, on almost any topic you can think of. That’s why there’s no excuse for you not to find one that speaks to you. Here are three I really enjoy!

I first discovered these shows when I downloaded Google Play Music. At the time I was getting back into studying philosophy, and I wondered “is there something I could listen to instead of reading”. From there I found a show called Philosophize This!. It’s a great educational show that takes you through the history of philosophy, and the host is very good. I used to go running and listen to an episode. It helped me combine exercising and learning and distracted me so I would end up running farther then I expected to (be careful of this… I was very sore the next day the first time this happened haha).

The next one I found and highly recommend is The Bevan James Eyles Show (The Fitness Behavior Podcast). I was on a walk one day in between clients (I’m a personal trainer) and I was wondering if I could find a podcast that would help my clients. The first one I found was this show. It is great, and one that can really help you make positive changes in your view of things and your life. Like the title says, it focuses on the behaviours behind what we do as opposed to other fitness podcasts that focus on particular exercises to do. A lot of the information is transferable to all parts of our lives, and not just for health and fitness. I myself have found it very useful, and it has helped many of my clients make positive changes as well.

This brings me to the last of my top three favourite shows, and this is the part where I shamelessly plug our own podcast Hit Continue. Truthfully though, I am a fan. It is a gaming and variety show hosted by Greg Pilkington. Every week the guys talk about what they’re playing, watching, and things going on in the gaming and entertainment world. It’s very entertaining, and I always end up learning something, or come out of it wanting to watch a new show, or play a new game. Like most podcasts it is available on Google Play, and Apple Music. Unlike the other two I mentioned, this one is more comedy based, and feels like your just hanging out with friends as you listen to it. If you are into gaming and pop culture, definitely give it a listen.

These are just three of the shows that I really enjoy, but truthfully there are podcasts on pretty much anything. So, rather then just listening to the radio on your commute, or while you’re doing your work around the house, throw on a podcast and learn something (especially ours! Haha). Let us know what some of your favourite podcasts are!

]]><![CDATA[The Deadly Tower of Monsters]]>Wed, 23 Nov 2016 08:00:00 GMThttp://www.lowfive.ca/coles-journal/the-deadly-tower-of-monsters

If you ask my friends, I am terrible for starting a game, playing a good way through it, and then never finishing it, or picking it up again. Haha oops! It is something I have been trying to get better with, but that is why I really enjoy the free games that come with a PlayStation Gold Membership.

Every month you get two free games. This ends up more then paying for your subscription by the end of the year, and also lets you enjoy a lot of lesser known games, as well as great indie games. For me this is great because I get to enjoy new games every month and I didn’t “pay” for them, so I don’t feel so bad not finishing them. The funny part though is lately I have been beating them.

The one I’ve been enjoying right now is called ‘The Deadly Tower of Monsters’. It’s kind of like the movie ‘Snakes on a Plane’ where it reallydoesn’t try and hide what it is. There is a giant tower filled with monsters and you must get to the top. It is a top down shooter/slasher game, and there are your standard weapon power ups and character level ups which keep it interesting to keep playing.

The part that really hooked me though is the style they chose to tell the story. They could have gone the tired route where you are an astronaut that crash lands and blah blah blah get to the top of the tower, but they don’t… well not necessarily. While yes, in a way that is the plot, the story is told as if you are watching a movie. The game is portrayed as if it is the new DVD release of an old space movie, where the director has come back to do the commentary.

As you are playing the director will chime in and tell you why they did certain things with the set, why the plot is going the way it is, or how they came up with the ridiculous monsters you are facing, etc. It is all very funny and entertaining. Truth be told, if that was not the gambit for this game I would probably not still be playing it.

I thought it was such an original idea for a tired concept that it keeps me playing just to hear all about how this “movie” was made.

If you like slashers, and old space movies, I would definitely recommend giving it a download. Especially if you have a gold PlayStation membership because then, hey it’s free and why not. We are always looking for more games to play and review, so let us know what your favourite free downloads have been with PlayStation or Xbox.

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