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    All That Remains: Part 1

    All That Remains: Part 1

    Games and Entertainment

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    “Duncan Price is paranoid” they used to say. He’s just a “local nut” they said. They used...

The Thing: Infection at Outpost 31
The Thing: Infection at Outpost 31
2017 | Entertainment, Horror
Good game. Could be great with some house rule tweaking.
The Thing: Infected at Outpost 31 is a good game. It really gets the feel of John Carpenter's movie a far as the characters, the props & the look and layout of the outpost. That being said, the game has none of the suspense the movie has. But it can, with some house rules.
The first game I played, we had 6 players. We played the game wrong & had 3 infected. Even though we had too many infected, I was still able to pick all 3 infected. One I torched, 2 I got with the blood tests. Because the humans are able to talk about what cards are given to the captain with each mission, it's too easy to figure out the infected, unless the infected plays the game as a human & totally straight. Because of that, the game is boring as it was too easy for the humans to beat the missions & that it was a guarantee the game would get to the escape portion with no problem. During the game, the danger level didn't get past the third spot, so the danger never affected the missions. Far too easy for the humans. One friend, who was infected, played 2 sabotage cards & we easily figured out he was infected. The other 2 I guessed because of the way they acted. Not the way they acted in the game, just the way they acted. After the game, I suggested that we not be allowed to say what cards you give to the captain. I suggested we say either we can help with the mission or we cannot help. One friend disagreed & said it would be too easy for the infected to win the game by destroying 4 rooms or making 8 missions fail. I disagree.


Due to the arguments of my one friend, we decided it was up to the captain as to whether the cards were told during their missions. This doesn't work because only an infected would want to not have the cards said. As I mentioned, in the first game the danger level only moved up to the third spot. In the second game, we played with 8 players. The danger level only moved up once. Once! There is no suspense when the captain looks at his cards & says "No sabotage." because it's known the infected are playing the game as human, because they'll give themselves up otherwise. And once you're found out, you're left out for much of the game. I was infected in the second game. The first infected in fact. Every time I was chosen for a mission, it was with 3 or 4 player teams & would have been too easy to figure out I was the infected if I sabotaged the mission. So, I played the game straight to the end. It was only when my friend accused me of being infected & I gave up my "tell" that he was adamant I was infected. So again, it had nothing to do with the game, but rather reading my face.


So, basically, if you wanted, you could hand out the blood sample cards, accuse people of being infected, read their faces & guess who's infected without having to bother with the nonsense of the missions. Give the guesser 2 blood tests, because you're guaranteed to still be in danger level 1 & have 2 blood tests anyway. If the missions were exciting, I'd be all for it, but most of them aren't. It's just seeing who has the right cards, which with so many players, you're guaranteed to beat it.


And so, my suggestion of not being allowed to tell what cards you're given is one of the ways to fix this game. Yes, it may be easier for the infected to cause trouble, but without this change, there is no trouble, no sense of danger, no chance for the infected to win, unless they get lucky & get in on the escape. Without that chance of causing trouble, the game is monotonous & is just a big guess at the end. Another way I thought of fixing the game is throwing in a random card during a mission. Just draw an extra card, without looking at it, mix it in with other cards & then see what happens. That may seem unfair because then the mission may be too easily won (even more easily than they already are) & so I suggested another way. If a mission parameter is to have a choice of number of players, for example 4-5 players, then the captain can only choose a 4 player team & the 5th player would be a random card. This way, not every mission will have a random card drawn for it.


Anyway, I do like the game, but feel it could be made into a great game with some kind of tweak to fix this major problem.
  
Jarhead 3: The Siege (2016)
Jarhead 3: The Siege (2016)
2016 | Action, Drama
5
5.0 (1 Ratings)
Movie Rating
Story: Jarhead 3: The Siege starts as new recruit Evan Albright (Weber) who has just gotten a role working in the US Embassy in the Middle East, welcomed by Hansen (Ainsley) and under the orders from Gunny Raines (Adkins) with the job to protect the Ambassador Cahill (Hogan). With Evan going through the lesson of how to operate in the embassy we are ready to begin.

Evan notices somebody outside the normal outside the embassy, which soon sees him learning the lessons of the protocol. The marines find the embassy under siege and must use all their training to keep the Ambassador alive against countless enemies.

 

Thoughts on Jarhead 3: The Siege

 

Characters – Evan is the newest marine bought into the embassy, he does fill in the gaps for the protocol that must be followed by the team, learn to work with the rest of the unit and is the first to suspect something is going on around the embassy and ends up being the one leading the fight back. Gunny Raines is the leader of the marines, you play by his rules or face the consequences. Major Lincoln is the one leading the rescue attempt, bringing the back-up required to hopefully help the stranded marines, spends most of the film in a helicopter racing to the scene. Olivia Winston is the computer operative at the embassy, she like Evan has bigger dreams when it comes to rising up through the military rankings.

Performances – Charlie Weber does take the leading role here where we follow his character entering the world, he works as a soldier never setting the world alight, which can be same for the whole cast sees Scott Adkins, Sasha Jackson and Dennis Haysbert.

Story – The story here follows a newly recruit marine in an US embassy that must deal with a siege from the locals on the building meaning he will join the marines to show off their skills to defend the embassy. This is one of the simplest stories you will ever see, we follow Evan as he and we learn the lay of the land, the siege is everything you would expect too, following the usual ideas of needing to have safety and out live the numbers that are trying to kill you. It does feel like the story is safe rather than challenging.

Action/War – The action plays into the war side of the film, we get plenty of military manoeuvres to see bullets flying around.

Settings – The settings in the film show us the embassy and how the marines operate within it, we see how this makes the positions difficult to defend.


Scene of the Movie – The escape.

That Moment That Annoyed Me – It is too by the books.

Final Thoughts – This is an easy to follow military action film, it doesn’t do anything wrong, only it just seems to be by the book and overly safe.

 

Overall: Safe Military Film.
  
TL
The Life of Glass
8
8.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
Melissa’s father died almost two years ago. She has been struggling, but is surviving with the help of her best friend Ryan. But through a series of events, her world gets turned upside down. A new girl comes to school and befriends her immediately, for some unknown reason. Ryan gets a girlfriend. Melissa’s mom is dating some guy. Ashley, her older sister, is… well just being an annoying older sister with problems. And in the middle of it all, Melissa still has unsolved mysteries about her father, her desires, and herself.

The Life of Glass is a fast read—I tore through it in a matter of hours. I wasn’t particularly sure why I couldn’t stop reading it. Maybe it was the easy language, maybe it was the characters, maybe I was just in the mood for a good romance novel and that was what was on my shelf. Either way, I didn’t stop reading until my sister turned the light out on me.

I liked the characters a lot (though some of them I despised) and others remained mysteries until later in the book; they were those “oh I had no idea they were that kind of person” characters, and I liked the mystery of their personalities. They were relatable and likeable.

That being said, there was nothing hugely spectacular about The Life of Glass: nothing that will make it a long lasting fantastic memory or escape for me. I enjoyed it and I won’t forget it, but it won’t be one of those “second reads.”

This was part of the 1 ARC Tours for Bloody Bad.
  
Blood Father (2016)
Blood Father (2016)
2016 | Action, Mystery
7
7.3 (11 Ratings)
Movie Rating
Mel Unleashed
418. Blood Father. I had the feeling the whole time that this easily could have been the script for the last Rambo flick, Sly said no, Mel just got off house arrest so, it worked out. In this, I think Mel is playing a version of himself, and just went with it. Link is an ex-con recovering alcoholic that gets a call from his missing daughter, like legit missing, reward money type missing, anyways, she just called to let her know that she just killed her Mexican mobster boyfriend, and she's on the run and needs help. So Link goes and picks up Lydia and brings her back to his home/tattoo parlor. But wouldn't you know it, those mobsters find out where she went, and show up in a pretty amusing gunfight, each time Link pulls the trigger he announces out loud the criminal charge he is now going to face. Escape they do, on the run they must go. Once at a motel, obviously terrified that a criminal organization wants her and her father dead, she still has time to be a teenage girl and come flirt with the checkout guy, and that's when she sees the TV, the law is now looking for them as well. So go deeper into hiding they must, she dyes her hair blonde, Link shaves his pretty awesome beard to look like Mel's very real mugshot, and off they go again. Will the mobsters catch up? Of course they will or there'd be no point! It's definitely not great, but still fun to watch. Filmbufftim on FB!