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Sethea Spidell (5 KP) rated Pokémon GO in Apps

May 18, 2019  
Pokémon GO
Pokémon GO
Games, Health & Fitness
This game is so much fun to play. As long as you have an internet connection, you can play anywhere or anytime. The graphics are great and it really makes the monsters come to life. You can battle (2 more)
other players that you're friends with and send gifts back and forth. Hatching eggs and getting candy is so much easier with Adventure Sync and you get points for tasks done over a week. And to top
it all off you can now take pictures with your pokemon!
Sometimes the game "stops" when the app isn't open. (0 more)
This game is so much fun to play. As long as you have an internet connection, you can play anywhere or anytime. The graphics are great and it really makes the monsters come to life. You can battle other players that you're friends with and send gifts back and forth. Hatching eggs and getting candy is so much easier with Adventure Sync and you get points for tasks done over a week. And to top it all off you can now take pictures with your pokemon!
  
The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms
The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms
N.K. Jemisin | 2000 | Science Fiction/Fantasy
8
8.3 (3 Ratings)
Book Rating
Finally got around to reading this one to see what all the fuss was about. I purchased the omnibus ebook on my nook app to have all three after reading the sample a few days prior and it stuck with me. let me just say that the hype is warranted. going into it I really didn't expect to be so entranced by the story, as I haven't read this sort of fantasy in a long time, but I found myself resentful every time real life interfered with my reading forcing me to put it down for a while. I was so absorbed that I even dreamed about it lol. there is something about the authors writing style that hooked me from the beginning, the world building is superb, and the characters were very well developed. I loved that there were plot twists I didn't see coming a mile away, especially at the end. the ending was nicely done, tying up this particular story while also setting up the next book in the trilogy. highly recommended! now I'm on to book two!
  
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Kelly (279 KP) rated IMDb Movies & TV in Apps

Nov 22, 2018  
IMDb Movies & TV
IMDb Movies & TV
Entertainment, Lifestyle, Reference
8
8.6 (116 Ratings)
App Rating
Perfect for those ... ‘I recognise that actor’ moments. (0 more)
Fantastic data base
I downloaded the IMDB app to my phone some time ago, and it gets used regularly by my husband and myself.

Although the site includes data on the majority of tv and film programs that have been made/ shown, I primarily use it to find out more about the actors/ actresses.

Ratings of programmes and films are a good indication of the quality of what you are watching and at times have enticed me into watching a film that I may otherwise have ignored.

At times there has been information missing from the site (e.g. overviews for lesser known or new releases), which although understandable as a result of the size of the project, can be a little frustrating to the user who becomes reliant on having the information at hand. There are also a few user additions to overviews, which I have found can be more thorough than the IMDB ones, however a small number so have inaccuracies.
  
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Whatchareadin (174 KP) rated Humpany in Books

Aug 5, 2019  
Humpany
Humpany
8
8.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
Andre and Camille have known each other for a while now. They were both in their friends, Peyton & Lance's wedding. But Camille left the party early and Andre sees no reason to stick around. When he gets home, he's lonely and wants a warm body by his side. He goes on the the app Booty Call and who does he find there buy Camille. He invites her over and one thing leads to another and the next thing you know, they're in bed together and neither one of them is mad about that. But can friends become lovers, or will it ruin the friendship.

Humpany is the 3rd book in the Booty Call Series, and this one I liked. I liked that Andre and Camille had a friendly relationship and didn't just jump in bed every time they saw each other. Camille is the type of girl I would be friends with. She is laid back and knows what she wants.

Another quick read from the Queens of the Quickie.
  
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Lenard (726 KP) rated Stuber (2019) in Movies

Aug 19, 2019  
Stuber (2019)
Stuber (2019)
2019 | Action, Comedy
Who ya gonna call?
In the vein of such mismatched buddy action crime comedies like Midnight Run, 48 Hours, and National Security, Stuber pairs ex-wrestler Dave Bautista (Vic) and stand-up Kumail Nanjiani (Stu). Vic is a Los Angeles detective with a lead on the drug lord he has been investigating for years who murdered his partner. He gets eye surgery in a plot device to pass his firearm test so he is effectually blind. Stu is a sporting goods employee in the friend zone with a beautiful blonde he has known since college who has just broken up with her boyfriend and needs some Stu-love. Stu also works nights as an Uber driver with a checkered history. One night after crashing his Ford Crown VIctoria, Vic uses the Uber app his daughter installed on his phone so he could safely attend his sculpture exhibition. Stu takes the ride and rides along as Vic chases his white whale. Soon, Stu gets a load of testerone from the steroid-addicted Vic and Vic learns to express his emotions from the metrosexual Stu.
  
Countdown (2019)
Countdown (2019)
2019 | Horror, Thriller
Poorly executed
I remember seeing the trailer for this and being intrigued, yet didn't get chance to watch it at the cinema. Which is a shame as it might have been better on the big screen.

The plot and idea behind this is a good one. An app that tells you when you die thats actually true? With today's technology reliant society, this is a wonderful idea for a film as it can resonate with most people. The problem is that it has been very poorly executed. I didn't find it particularly scary or horrifying, and the number of deaths in this are surprisingly lacking. They've also tried to give this a proper back story and explanation when really it wasn't necessary. If they had made it a lot creepier and a lot less explainable, this could've actually been a decent film as the acting of a couple of leads was quite good. And i loved the IT guy who definitely brought a few laughs.

Overall not terrible, but not particularly scary for a horror which was a shame.
  
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LeftSideCut (3778 KP) Aug 16, 2020

This is on my (large) list to watch. I always have time for an average horror 👍😂

The Moscow Whisper
The Moscow Whisper
Michael Jenkins | 2020 | Fiction & Poetry, Thriller
8
8.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
This is another non-stop action spy thriller from Michael Jenkins, and this time his hero, Sean Richardson, is on a mission to infiltrate a group of Russian mercenaries who are trying to take over a nation state in Africa.

What surprises me more than anything, is how much I enjoy these books. I don’t like spy books. I failed miserably to read and enjoy the only James Bond book I picked up. But when I saw this pop up on the options of books to read on The Pigeonhole app, I jumped at the opportunity to sign up. I’ve enjoyed all three of these books in the series. They’re really engaging, well explained for those of us who don’t understand the inner workings of British Intelligence or military, and the characters are highly likeable (or detestable, depending on who they are!).

It’s simply a great read, whether you like spy novels, or if you’ve never tried one. This whole series is so good, and I’m already looking forward to the next one!
  
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Tamsin Clark (15 KP) rated Facebook in Apps

Jan 20, 2018  
Facebook
Facebook
Communication, Entertainment, Events, Social Networking
4
7.6 (436 Ratings)
App Rating
Ability to keep in touch (2 more)
Pages for groups and local business
Ability to add photos and movies
Messenger and Facebook separate apps (6 more)
Facebook pushes their agenda
Adverts and content montoring
Report system only acknowledges what it wants
Enables cyber bullying
Site changes harmed small business
'Fake news' is a thing.
How much fear would you like today?
I used to really enjoy using Facebook, but over the years I've watched the site and the app(s) sink further and further into the doldrums of commercialism and sly financial gain. It's now easier to be reported and banned for making a nonsensical sentence than it is for threatening to kill someone. Pictures of female nipples are immediately banned but pictures of people torturing animals aren't.
Business pages have to pay to be seen and if they make posts and don't pay for them, they find their reach grossly reduced. Certain news outlets are encouraged and bolstered while others are all but hidden, and the 'trending' news always shows the very worst of the worst stories. There is also a lot of this 'fake news' around, where articles will show up with stories that are entirely untrue but made to look real, which takes even more time to research than it does to read in the first place. I'd say another 50% of posts are clickbait too. Feeds have been altered over and over again to the point that they're now almost impossible to customise to see what YOU want to see and not what Facebook wants you to see. And all the while, each click you make, each comment you write is read by the site and used to customise adverts and content to you, whether you like it or not. Even in messenger.

When it comes to content, Facebook does provide a good amount. On a personal level, if you restricted your feed to ONLY people you know in person and they didn't join any groups or flood your feed with game updates, then it would be a fine site to use for actual social interaction. It's possible to upload multiple images and videos, use links to display pages, media or otherwise that are of interest. You can set up alerts too but beware of being inundated by a million alerts every moment. There is a messaging service too; if you use a browser then it's all on the same site but if you use the apps, you have to have a separate app for Facebook and messenger and they don't work together, even though the Facebook app has a messenger icon as part of its design. It takes up a LOT of room on a phone, especially if you don't have much to start with. Also, if you block someone on messenger (even for a laugh) it automatically unfriends you on Facebook, yet supposedly the two are not connected so go figure.

I recently stopped using the site. I have a profile still as I have a lot of images and life events that I want to keep but I now barely browse once a week. Every thread descended into an argument, too many people use it as a troll hub to release the tensions of their unhappy lives on others while avoiding all responsibility for it. It ended up a bad way to waste time and made my anxiety issues a lot worse too.
  
Divinus
Divinus
2022 | Dice Game, Fantasy, Mythology
Bragi. Hercules. Percy Jackson. All excellent examples of successful demigods. As you well know, demigods are offspring of a god and a mortal. Of all the things I have conjured in my lifetime to answer the old, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” question, I never really answered, “a demigod.” Well, that’s because I KNOW my parents and have a hard time believing I could be a son of a god or goddess. Unless it was some weird NPCs (novel series by Drew Hayes) universe with Grumble as my patron/parent. In any case, my new dream of becoming the greatest demigod alive must be played out in today’s preview: Divinus.

Divinus is a competitive tile placement, campaign, drafting, dice game in which players assume the roles of upcoming demigods fighting over the one last spot at the table. By appeasing the gods of the warring ancient Roman and Norse cultures players will earn their place among them. This game uses some interesting hybrid app-driven story mechanics along with legacy-style component alterations to create this world that is constantly under refurbishment and ripe for the claiming of the future Divinus.

DISCLAIMER: We were provided a prototype copy of this game for the purposes of this review. These are preview copy components, and I do not know for sure if the final components will be any different from these shown. Also, it is not my intention to detail every rule in the game, as there are just too many. You are invited to download the rulebook, back the game through the Gamefound campaign, or through any retailers stocking it after fulfillment. -T


To setup, place the main board on the table, sort out the Map tiles by player count, and populate the board per the rulebook. Each player chooses their Demigod box and takes all components contained within. As Divinus is intended to be played either as a scenario session or its Eternal Mode, which is infinitely replayable using the board and components already altered by previously-played scenarios, open the chosen Scenario Box to be played and allow the app to instruct on how to setup with these components. All players roll their dice and place them in the “ready” pile to be used on their first turn. The first player takes the token (a black meeple in the prototype version) and the game is ready to be played!
Divinus is played in turns starting with the first player and continuing around the table until one player places their final Map tile signaling the end of the game. On a turn, players will have a choice of using an Explore action or a Rest action. More actions may be available in future scenarios, but for the prototype scenarios, these are the two available choices. During an Explore action, the active player will choose any number of their rolled dice in order to create a mathematical equation that matches with one of the Map tiles on the main board. These spaces range from 1-12 in value, so an appropriate dice combination could be 5 + 4 – 1 = 8 in order to claim the Map tile on the 8 spot. Any number of dice can be used to claim tiles, and once a tile is claimed, it must be placed within the player’s personal play area map. In order to add these tiles, the edges will need to match up by terrain type with tiles already presently in play (see below), or may also be placed atop an existing tile. Map tiles may or may not contain symbols for factions, locations, and also Sacred Places. These will all be used in scenarios for different purposes.

Once a player decides they do not wish to (or cannot) take more Explore actions, they must Rest. To Rest, the active player reclaims all spent (and unspent ready) dice and rerolls them for the next turn, replacing empty spaces on the board with new Map tiles.


Play continues in this fashion of Exploring and Resting until one player places their 16th tile, thus completing their 4×4 personal map. Players will consult the app for scoring instructions and the winner will be announced. Should the players wish to play another scenario (or many, as we would have liked), they simply use the same Demigods and open a new Scenario Box. Inside these boxes are different gods to appease, new quests to fulfill (more on these later), and stickers to be applied to game components to improve their usefulness.
Components. Again, this is a prototype version of the game, and it includes two introductory scenarios, a bunch of sticker sheets, and a developmental app. That said, I really enjoyed my plays of the scenarios and they felt like great first steps to lure me into what I just know is going to be somewhat of a lifestyle game (assuming more and more expansions are in the plans). The sticker sheets are all fine, and as I understand it, the stickers that are placed on the Map tiles will have non-removable glue, but the stickers placed on the dice faces will have removable glue. As I am not a glue expert, I can’t really vouch for either. The app is somewhat similar to those that are used in the Chronicles of Crime series, but Divinus promises to deliver an app that can scan the components WITHOUT the use of QR codes. For those gamers who think the QRs are an eye-sore, then Divinus is taking a promising first step for you! I haven’t even touched on the artwork yet, and that’s usually my favorite aspect of a game’s components. The visual style and art on Divinus really make the game pop on the table, and just draw you into the lore and setting. I love it!

So while initially Divinus is a simple roll-and-draft game of building a 4×4 grid akin to Kingdomino, the addition and usage of the Quests and, later, the Charge Actions, morph this into something quite a bit meatier. Each Scenario Box (at least in this version) contains two god cards (that affect how the end of the scenario is scored) and some Quest cards (that are side-quests players can follow to earn some extra VP and other goodies). I imagine as the game progresses through Scenario Boxes that Quests will get more difficult and the god cards more interesting as well.

All in all Divinus has roped me in, and I am very much looking forward to all the other great things that Lucky Duck Games has planned for it. I can foresee soooooo many expansions being built on this excellent chassis, and I am very eager to finish the entire legacy aspect in order to play through the Eternal Mode a bunch of times. Can I divulge a little dirty secret of mine here? I have never before played any type of legacy board game, and if this is what they are like, then I will be breaking out my copy of Betrayal Legacy way sooner than I originally planned.

I believe that the theming here is great, the gameplay is relatively simple to grasp, and the hybrid app-driven story really adds to the entire experience. If you are someone who, like me, has yet to delve into legacy-style games where the components are constantly changing due to choices made at the table, and you have a penchant for dice games with a splash of ACTUAL math skills used, I urge you to take a look at backing Divinus on Gamefound ASAP. With just the initial two scenarios included, I am already addicted to the game and cannot wait to sink my teeth into more scenarios and more crucial decisions that will alter the landscape of my copy of the game. I know that as of the publish date of this preview, the campaign is already about 1000% funded and so many stretch goals have already been unlocked. It is a great time to hop on board and grab a big ol’ chunk of goodies for this one. You may have a preference for Roman or Norse mythology before playing, but be warned: your loyalties may change as a result of playing Divinus… or maybe you will learn to accept both at the harmonious center of activity in your own little section of the world.
  
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Sarah (7798 KP) rated Google Maps - GPS Navigation in Apps

Nov 4, 2017 (Updated Nov 4, 2017)  
Google Maps - GPS Navigation
Google Maps - GPS Navigation
Navigation, Utilities
8
8.7 (141 Ratings)
App Rating
Couldn't live without it
For me, Google maps is a vitally essential app that I just couldn't without it. There's rarely a day goes by where I don't use it for directions or checking traffic. The fact that you can check traffic is a very handy feature! I also love that you can check bus times by clicking on a bus stop. If like me you're not a regular bus rider, this is very helpful.

My only criticisms would be that sometimes the alternative routes don't seem to work. I live near the Manchester M60 ring road, so know there's always at least 2 options by going opposite ways round the ring road. However sometimes Google only gives me one route. But then other times it gives me both. Even if the traffic is atrocious I'd still like to see both routes! It also then makes me question the routes it gives me when I don't know the area.

Also the traffic indicator can be a little hit and miss. Sometimes it can be showing red, but there ends up being barely any traffic at all.
  
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Suswatibasu (1701 KP) Nov 4, 2017

Literally the most important app on phones!