All Fast and Furious Characters and the distinctive likeness(es) are Trademarks & Copyright of Universal Studios
  All Rights Reserved.

The Fast and Furious franchise at the time of me writing this as spanned 8 film's with two more in the pipeline and at least one spin-off in the form of Hobbs and Shaw.

I’m a big fan of the franchise and for me, it started many years ago in 2001 I was a big fan of modified cars back then and dreamed of cruising the streets much like in the Fast and the Furious with a modified car and street racing, though a lot of that was put to rest as I wasn’t too reckless and insurance was very expensive. I got my fix through the Need for Speed Underground games though.

Whilst the main franchise continues to keep things around the ‘Toretto family’ the spin-off Hobbs and Shaw takes things in a different direction by taking two characters who were both introduced as bad guys in previous films with Hobbs being the main antagonist to Brian and Dom in Fast Five and Deckard Shaw being the main villain who was out for revenge in Fast and Furious 7 who took out fan favourite Han (because he was a fan favourite Fast 4, 5, 6 and part of 7 were all set before Tokyo Drift which was the 3rd film produced but sits somewhere in between 6 and 7).

Both these characters were fan favourites since Hobbs turned up at least 4 times in the main series and Shaw 2 times. And they turned from villains into anti-Heros.
The Fate of the Furious (Fast and Furious 8) had established that both Dwayne Johnson and Jason Stratham had good chemistry so giving them their own buddy cop style film was a no-brainer.

The film picks up an unspecified time after Fate of the Furious and initially follows Hobbs and Shaw doing their respective things ie: kicking ass in their own little way before keeping true to the Fast and the Furious theme of family with us seeing Hobbs and his daughter and Shaw and his mum and also establishing that they are both in some ways estrange from family before both being recruited by the CIA to do a mission.

The main plot begins establishing key characters such as a woman who is responsible for securing the virus, an unstoppable villain with enhanced strengths and abilities and lots of action, comedy, and fast cars. The key thing aspect of family is strongly touched on through this film and the ending is especially touching and despite the hatred for each other Hobbs and Shaw do learn to tolerate each other which makes for some good action and laughs later on.

There are some cameos from Hollywood actors playing agents of sorts and can be especially funny and you hope for them to make an appearance in the sequel.

If you’re looking for some mindless fun that you can turn your brain off too it well worth watching and if you’re a fan of the franchise, definitely go watch this to see what happens to some well-loved characters and for a different take on ‘Family’ and Fast cars.

If you followed my last article you may have read about my return to Destiny which took place at the start of Bungie adding cross saves into the game and in some ways making it free to play for the original main campaign “Red War” and the DLC “Curse of Osiris” and “Warmind”.

My subsequent return as you may have read allowed me to carry over my characters from the first game. Unfortunately due to me having to complete the original base game on the PS3 (which I had only done with my Warlock and Hunter characters it meant that I currently didn’t have a Titan character on my account. I’d like to think the Titan was lost during the start of the Red War (Spoilers coming up though if you have not played it yet) when the Cabal attacked the Tower forcing everyone to flee the now destroyed tower and setting into motion the story for Destiny 2.

For the Red War campaign, my main was the Warlock with the Hunter remaining as a secondary character on my account which I levelled up using gear that I had unlocked using my Warlock and also from the Season of the Undying where Guardians faced the Vex and were able to level up and unlocked various items at different tiers.

I quite enjoyed the story for Destiny 2 though I don’t think it beats ‘The Taken King’ which was one of my favourite stories.

Being stripped of all our powers and gradually having to work our way back up whilst finding the Shard of the Traveler to gain our powers back was pretty fun but because there had been changes made to Destiny 2 in ‘New Light’ the rest of the story saw me basically have everything I had unlocked and carried over from Destiny 1 which mean most of the time I felt immensely overpowered. I suppose in the original campaign it would have been more fun to gradually unlock these abilities but I settled for just progressing the story.

I quite enjoyed exploring the EDZ (which I believe is one of the biggest zones in Destiny 2) and meeting Hawthorne and seeing the struggle of those outside of the Tower and eventually getting the band back together, tracking down Zavala on Titan, Cayde-6 on Nessus and Ikora on Io before storming the old City and saving the day and watching the heroes on the newly constructed tower look at the Traveler.

The voice acting was on point especially Nathan Fillon injecting his usual humour and charisma into Cayde-6 and cast of supporting characters were pretty good with a favourite of mind being Failsafe on Nessus.

I did feel though a lot of the impact in some places of the story was lost due to the changes that Bungie made for ‘New Light’. But I think making things more accessible in the long run is probably better and allows for a new fan base to take hold to support the game alongside the existing one as evident by steam downloads, etc.

Next time I’ll be venturing into the DLC Curse of Osiris which is a lot shorter and quicker to complete than the original campaign but continues to add to the lore and history surround Destiny.

Till then “Stay Safe Guardian”.

5 years ago there was a game called Destiny made by the studio previously responsible for the Halo franchise on the Xbox platform.

I was an avid gamer back then, alongside grinding a busy job I was looking for an escape from reality and looking to be able to cater for my ‘Gun Gale Online’ fantasies which stemmed from the Sword Art Online anime and light novel. Being able to craft an online character and create a persona around him or her was important to me and also to be the hero of my own story.

This is where Destiny came in. At the time Destiny's style has been described as a first-person shooter that incorporates role-playing and MMO elements, but Bungie has avoided describing Destiny as a traditional MMO game. It still, however, appealed to me and I picked it up on PS3 where I played it with my brother-in-arms and the King of Chaos.

I had some great times on there and supported Bungie through all the DLC up to 'The Taken King' then limitations kicked in, and they became Next Gen exclusives and I could no longer play since I no longer had the latest console.

Over the next few years, I dabbled in and out of ‘Destiny’ style games like Warframe (which is a great game in its own right) and even went back to MMO’s all alongside trying to live a life which didn’t seem to be very me.

It’s funny though as 2019 starts to draw to close and what I would consider a time when my life as gone very sideways and I’m feeling less like myself that Destiny comes back into the picture once again but in the form of its sequel ‘Destiny 2’.

Destiny 2 is very much in the same vein, its still an online-only multiplayer first-person shooter and saw its release as released for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One on September 6, 2017. Unlike before Activision are no longer the publishers as of early 2019 and Bungie acquired the publishing rights to the franchise.
Destiny 2 and its first 2 expansions are now free to play and called ‘New Light’ though subsequent DLC in the forms of Forsaken are paid and Shadowkeep the new season pass.

My return to the game was not the fact it went free to play (although it was a good thing) but the fact they introduced cross-save. Having started many years on PS3 I would have continued to play this game and support Bungie if I could have imported my characters from Playstation to Xbox.

Gaming was already getting expensive and not having many funds for a PS4 meant I was solely an Xbox One player this generation. Cross save certainly helped me to continue the legacy of my old characters, and I wished it could have come sooner.

Thanks to my brother-in-arms my Guardians returned, from the rubble of the Tower, destroyed at the start of Destiny 2 they were spared certain death but lost everything in the initial attack. Now it’s all about getting back on my feet and getting back onto the battlefield.
It feels in some way very apt how my Guardian returns when we are both walking similar paths. Despite being an on and off gamer for the past few years I think I’ll be in this one for the long haul especially after the year I’ve had and the reflection I’ve done.

If you are interested in learning more about Destiny 2 I recommend checking out the Wikipedia page to get a quick overview of what it's about and if you want to play it is free to download on the Xbox Store, PSN Store, and Steam.

Eyes up Guardian.

On Tuesday I went out for one last time with a old friend and we watched Guardians of the Galaxy Vol.2 which was a superb film. Though a little late to the table here is my 'average guy review' of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol.2.

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol.2 Production Concept Art
All Marvel Characters and the distinctive likeness(es) thereof are Trademarks & Copyright 2016
Marvel Characters Inc & Marvel Studios. All Rights Reserved.

Vol.2 is obviously the sequel to the underrated 2014 Guardians of the Galaxy which was a surprise hit back then. Things have certainly changed for the sequel with a larger team including  Yondu, Nebula and Mantis joining the ranks and Kurt Russell plays an excellent villain in the form of Ego.

The music is excellent as always with a mix of 70’s and 80’s music which was well utilised though I felt it wasn't as well done as the first film. Im curious how they will handle the 3rd film and potentially the appearances in Avengers Infinity Wars 1 & 2.

I enjoyed this film mainly due to the film be more expansive and expanding on the Guardians Universe and actually establishing the characters more and developing them further. Especially Yondu character who also generated the most redeeming aspects of the story, and touched me a little due to personal reasons and also generated a lot of laughs with me with the whole Mary Poppins thing (you’ll have to watch to know the reference).

I quiet enjoyed Baby Groot who of course being a child generated a lot of child like humour and especially funny in the beginning of the film during the opening credit sequence. I actually would have liked to see the sequence from the others perspectives.

Rocket also had a great arc and I felt for him towards the end likewise Peter and Gamora handling family issues. Really it felt like this whole film was all about Family.

The special effects and values were amazing, with everything seeming so real especially the planet elements when some of the Guardians visit Ego’s home.

It does take a whilst for the story to unfold as it felt a little flat in the middle but then again this is all character development and it really pays off in the end.

What I liked about the film was it was also willing to poke fun at a lot of things that are in our culture but also at itself, its like this film was self aware and will to use the humour in a stupid way whilst also giving us a implied wink.

Other things that stood out for me was the blink or you will miss it cameo from David Hasselhoff and also a very interesting appearance of Stan Lee, which for geeky fans makes you wonder and generates more questions than answers.

Its not a super hero film as such, I saw it more of a sci-fi film and I felt with it sat somewhere between an action film like Star Wars or Star Trek with elements of Deadpool who also has that self-awareness though on a 4^th wall breaking scale unlike Guardians. I would definitely recommend it to both types of fans and also Marvel or super hero fans.

I also mentioned the overall theme being family. I thought it was interesting, what started as a story about family defined by blood eventually developed into the family that you would spill blood for without sharing any.

This was basically Friends that became like Family, ie: Friends that can feel like family through a sense of belonging, understanding, friendship and camaraderie. It also makes you realise how sometimes you take things for granted and when they are not there how things can be different and makes you learn to appreciate those things you take for granted.

Would I recommend the film? Wholeheartedly yes, it’s a excellent film and for me it was one of the last I watched with a friend I will miss so I would say it was a worthy one to go out on.

In terms of ratings I would give it a 5/5 thumbs up! 

'Hello World'

Most people commonly associate these famous words with a computer program that outputs or displays 'Hello World' to the user.

For me 'Hello World' means something different, Its more like a greeting to others in the blogosphere and also to a whole new world know as blogging.

The funny thing is I've spent years, since I was young reading blogs but not actually writing anything.

So why start now?

The funny thing is it all started because of work, as part of my job I ended up creating content for a corporate blog. I found that I enjoyed being creative and designing things and also writing.

But why now do you ask. Well I suppose a few years ago I didn't see myself as wanting to blog about things, now I would say its a different story I have a lot of things on my mind and though my HTML & CSS Skills are only what I would describe as okay when compared to a professional web developer,  its enough for me to use to build a website/blog like this.

The funny thing is Im probably the most technical person in my field because I know how to do some of these things but when compared to someone who studied web development professionally at University Im somewhat lacking.

Its the same for my graphic design skill Ive managed to get it to a certain level but as I never majored in this field so am not as professional as anyone else but I wouldn't let that hold me back.

I've enjoy being creative and found that the best way to do that outside of work is probably as a hobby and I also had a friend that inspired me by telling me to put all my energies to positive and good use, which is what I did and am grateful for her advice.

This is what led me to creating 'Lexus Phoenix'. I also saw a need for me to in one sense have an outlet to make use of the skills I learned from work but in another sense because I enjoy writing I wanted to put my thoughts onto paper or internet paper in this case. Maybe I can start or participate in some discussions and make some friends along the way.

What can I expect to find here in the future?

I would probably say anything, I created this blog as more of a lifestyle blog and will blog about anything really. I hope you join me for the ride along the way.

So, Hello World :)