Breweries and Games!

Happy Halloween!  With Halloween on a Wednesday this year we had to take the chance to talk about a scary game.   Now If your reading this on Halloween then the game is still 75% off on Xbox and 85% on Steam. I'll spoiler my final verdict and recommend the game now. If you want to play the game at all then this sale is the prime time since it's $6. Now let's get into it.  Friday The 13th The Game puts you (and others) into a slasher film and all that entails. That's it. That's the entire premise. Fortunately, that's all it needs.  In the style of Evolve or Left 4 Dead   The game is a one vs all multiplayer. You are either one of seven counselors at Camp Crystal Lake or Jason Voorhees himself. As the counselors  you need to find a way to escape the camp, hide through the night, or kill Jason (though it's not easy). As Jason all you need to do is kill all the counselors.  Counselors can work together to escape or survive and have...

Longtime readers will remember that the RAM brewery was among the first breweries we visited. Well that was just one of several. That brewery was located in University Village shopping center. Well tonight we'll get to discuss another RAM location, conveniently located at another shopping mall. The RAM restaurant and brewery (Northgate) Flagship: multiple  Dogs: no Kids: yes Do they brew there: yes Food: full menu Has guest taps: no (but has liquor) Events: yes Outside seating: it's cold now, but maybe in the summer.  The brewery here a great deal less space to work with than the University Village RAM. That said, I think it plays to the breweries strength. The condensed space allows for the more natural layout.  What I mean is while the Uvill RAM has a distinct room for the bar it's all connected here. I like that. I'd always kinda felt segmented away from the rest of the building at Uvill. I've often said it's a strength of breweries...

Bioware really is THE name video game RPG storytelling. Where Bethesda is master of the open world, Bioware has always had the narrative down. From Knights of the Old Republic to Dragon Age anyone who has played these games has fond memories of them.  So now Mass Effect Andromeda exists. The soft reboot to the franchise after they wrote themselves into a corner. Seriously who ok'd that ending?  Jokes aside I do kinda wonder why this game bothered being a part of the Mass Effect franchise at all. You'll see what I mean as I explain the plot.  An initiative to colonize a far off galaxy is started sometime during the last three games.  You are a member of the pathfinder team on this, a combination explorer and soldier who is helping set up the new worlds.  Your traveling on the human ark with 20,000 colonists in cryofreeze.  The briefest of cutscenes rolls and bam. The game starts 600 years after the last games ended. 600 years and in a comp...

For the modern Seattleite, specifically one not native to the area, Bellevue is something of an unknown. There's the mall, of course, with a few stores that all of the malls have and some Seattle doesn't. There's a few restaurants that all cities have and some Seattle doesn't.  It's different sure, but I've spent very little time there. I need a reason to make the drive across the 520. My most recent reason was to visit Bellevue Brewing Company.  Flagship: None Dogs: no Kids: until 8 Do they brew there: yes Food: Full menu Has guest taps: no Events: yes/ has event spaces Outside seating: no Wifi: no Located a fair distance from the hustle and bustle of the town I nearly missed this place when I drove out. A sign on the window, the one in the picture above, is only obvious when directly in front of the place.  The unassuming outside of the brewery was nonetheless flanked by several parked cars. Evidence, I reflected as I held the do...

Oh Battlefield what happened?  You used to be great. With a new entry into the franchise out its high time we looked at the previous title.  Battlefield 1 tackles the far less morally clear of the two world wars. There's not a lot of games about the Great War and for good reason. In addition to having less evil enemies the war was far less glorious. Many people died of disease in trenches, choked to death on the air around them in gas attacks, and lived broken lives in a world that didn't understand what a conflict like this had done to their psyche. The technology of war then was at once simpler and more terrifying. Most had access to only bolt action weapons while the latest technologies cut people down in droves.  Battlefield, a series which has never had problems putting you on both sides of a conflict and equip the player with period weapons, opts here to give you a machine gun and point you at Prussians all day.  In fact, the game makes a point...

No trip I take down south of Renton is ever wasted. Or perhaps I should say that I make sure all my trips down south are worth it. To that end I recently visited a brewery which had been on my list for a long time. Wingman Brewers! Flagship: mutiple Dogs: yes Kids: yes Do they brew there: yes Food: bagged chips Has guest taps: yes Events: yes Outside seating: no Wifi: yes Located practically in the shadow of the Tacoma Dome this brewery sits on a wide street surrounded by highways and interstates. Despite busy roads all around them, the area is quiet.  Just a little remote. If you weren't looking for the brewery you might just miss it.  Doing some research before I headed to Tacoma my girlfriend remarked that they didn't serve wings there. "Why are they called Wingman then?" She remarked. I silently agreed with her and felt all the more silly for it with a single look at the brewery when I arrived Ah. Wingman. Wing-man. Of cours...