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Purple Phoenix Games (2266 KP) rated Similo: Spookies in Tabletop Games
Mar 11, 2022
Anyone who knows my gaming preferences will tell you that I am not at all a fan of many party games. I just find them less that gratifying, with usually little to no skill or strategy involved, and also typically invites lewd and disgusting suggestions and behaviors. No thanks. However, upon seeing many reviewers that I trust showing off their hauls from recent conventions including games from the Similo series, I just had to find out why. Have I been missing out, or is this just another lame excuse for a “party game?”
Similo: Spookies (which I will just call Similo from here on out, as they are all basically the same, but with different themes) is a party card game where one player knows information and attempts to persuade the other players to choose the correct character SILENTLY. One game lasts five rounds or less, and many times players will want to play multiple games in a row.
To setup, shuffle the deck of cards and place it face-down on the table. The player chosen to be the “Clue Giver” will then secretly look at the top card. This card will be the secret character for the entire game. Along with this card, the Clue Giver will draw an additional 11 cards and shuffle them. Next, lay out the 12 characters face-up in a 4×3 grid, so that all players can see. Finally, the Clue Giver draws another five cards to act as their starting hand of clues. The game may now begin in earnest!
The game lasts no more than five rounds, and each round is played mostly the same. During the first round the Clue Giver will place a card from their hand onto the table in either Portrait or Landscape mode (I know there are different words to describe these orientations, but they are failing me now). When a card is in Portrait mode, the Clue Giver is letting the players know that the secret character has similarities to the played card. Landscape placement means that the secret character has differences from the card played.
At the end of the first round, the other players must discuss and decide one card from the grid to remove from play, based on the Clue Giver’s information. If the card removed is the secret character (or at any time the secret character is removed in this way) the players all immediately lose the game. However, if the players have removed an appropriate character card, then the game moves to the second round. Each subsequent round is played exactly the same way, except the number of cards removed will match the round number being played. For example, during the third round three cards will be removed. The only exception here is the very last fifth round. During this round there will only be two cards remaining, and the players will need to choose the correct one to win the game. Win or lose, all players will most likely request to play another game with a different Clue Giver.
Components. This game is 30 cards in a tuckbox. The cards are all great quality with excellent linen finish. They each have the character’s name on the upper left corner and a small thematic quip on the lower right corner. The big thing here is the utterly amazing character art by Naiade (Seasons, Tokaido, Isla Dorada, etc). They are each so wonderfully illustrated, and they have to be, considering the entire game is based on the similarity or differences of each card. I was so very pleasantly surprised to see this beautiful set of cards pop out of the box when I opened it. Zero issues with components here.
This game is low-key a thinking person’s puzzle. How can I get the group to exclude one card specifically and throw away all the others? What the heck is this Clue Giver trying to tell us? What exactly is an Oni? With the right group of gamers, especially those that share many inside jokes and experiences, this could be a nightly hit. Now, determining the difference between Frankenstein’s Monster and a Zombie may be harder than you thought, so do be careful with those technicalities.
This one really reminds me of a much more compact version of Deception: Murder in Hong Kong. There is a silent Clue Giver in both trying to guide the other players to the right answer using cards. If I can get the same feeling from a game featuring 30 cards versus about 300 I might have a replacement situation on my hands here.
For its tiny table presence, excellent artwork, and overall game play, Purple Phoenix Games gives this one a bone-chilling 4 / 6. I know at this very second that my score is hanging in the balance. I want it to be a 5 so very badly, and I feel that it may actually get there, assuming I can play with larger groups of people and a variety of types of gamers. For now, I am happy with the 4 it is assigned. If you are like me and didn’t know you needed a smaller game in your collection that can give similo experiences to bigger boxes, give this one a shot.
Oh PS – You can also combine the different sets into a larger and more chaotic game. I’m not sure I have the huevos for that quite yet, but I think a good counterpart to this Halloween-themed set may be the Fables or Myths sets. Let me know if you have combined these two and if my hunch is correct. I’m going to go fanboy over Naiade’s art now.
Similo: Spookies (which I will just call Similo from here on out, as they are all basically the same, but with different themes) is a party card game where one player knows information and attempts to persuade the other players to choose the correct character SILENTLY. One game lasts five rounds or less, and many times players will want to play multiple games in a row.
To setup, shuffle the deck of cards and place it face-down on the table. The player chosen to be the “Clue Giver” will then secretly look at the top card. This card will be the secret character for the entire game. Along with this card, the Clue Giver will draw an additional 11 cards and shuffle them. Next, lay out the 12 characters face-up in a 4×3 grid, so that all players can see. Finally, the Clue Giver draws another five cards to act as their starting hand of clues. The game may now begin in earnest!
The game lasts no more than five rounds, and each round is played mostly the same. During the first round the Clue Giver will place a card from their hand onto the table in either Portrait or Landscape mode (I know there are different words to describe these orientations, but they are failing me now). When a card is in Portrait mode, the Clue Giver is letting the players know that the secret character has similarities to the played card. Landscape placement means that the secret character has differences from the card played.
At the end of the first round, the other players must discuss and decide one card from the grid to remove from play, based on the Clue Giver’s information. If the card removed is the secret character (or at any time the secret character is removed in this way) the players all immediately lose the game. However, if the players have removed an appropriate character card, then the game moves to the second round. Each subsequent round is played exactly the same way, except the number of cards removed will match the round number being played. For example, during the third round three cards will be removed. The only exception here is the very last fifth round. During this round there will only be two cards remaining, and the players will need to choose the correct one to win the game. Win or lose, all players will most likely request to play another game with a different Clue Giver.
Components. This game is 30 cards in a tuckbox. The cards are all great quality with excellent linen finish. They each have the character’s name on the upper left corner and a small thematic quip on the lower right corner. The big thing here is the utterly amazing character art by Naiade (Seasons, Tokaido, Isla Dorada, etc). They are each so wonderfully illustrated, and they have to be, considering the entire game is based on the similarity or differences of each card. I was so very pleasantly surprised to see this beautiful set of cards pop out of the box when I opened it. Zero issues with components here.
This game is low-key a thinking person’s puzzle. How can I get the group to exclude one card specifically and throw away all the others? What the heck is this Clue Giver trying to tell us? What exactly is an Oni? With the right group of gamers, especially those that share many inside jokes and experiences, this could be a nightly hit. Now, determining the difference between Frankenstein’s Monster and a Zombie may be harder than you thought, so do be careful with those technicalities.
This one really reminds me of a much more compact version of Deception: Murder in Hong Kong. There is a silent Clue Giver in both trying to guide the other players to the right answer using cards. If I can get the same feeling from a game featuring 30 cards versus about 300 I might have a replacement situation on my hands here.
For its tiny table presence, excellent artwork, and overall game play, Purple Phoenix Games gives this one a bone-chilling 4 / 6. I know at this very second that my score is hanging in the balance. I want it to be a 5 so very badly, and I feel that it may actually get there, assuming I can play with larger groups of people and a variety of types of gamers. For now, I am happy with the 4 it is assigned. If you are like me and didn’t know you needed a smaller game in your collection that can give similo experiences to bigger boxes, give this one a shot.
Oh PS – You can also combine the different sets into a larger and more chaotic game. I’m not sure I have the huevos for that quite yet, but I think a good counterpart to this Halloween-themed set may be the Fables or Myths sets. Let me know if you have combined these two and if my hunch is correct. I’m going to go fanboy over Naiade’s art now.
Neon's Nerd Nexus (360 KP) rated Joker (2019) in Movies
Oct 5, 2019 (Updated Oct 5, 2019)
You were never really here.
Joker buries a knife deep into your chest right from the start and just when you feel it might finally be pulled out to give you relief it twists it in a little deeper. Make no mistake about it Joker is a slow burn drama/character study so those expecting big action and Batman are in for a real shock here but then again thats also what I think is so special. Joker works hard and earns its big explosive moments with such a steady, progresive, careful character build up that ensures when vilolence hits its shocking, powrful, cold and chilling and thats whats so refreshing and brave about it especially for a mainstream film. Theres no hand holding, no sugar coating and no holding back here and its absolutely riveting and glorious to behold playing out a cross between taxi driver and you were never really here joaquin phoenix plays an already dangerously unstable man pushed over his breaking point by life and society. From the moment we first set eyes on Arthur we see his pain seeping out through his pupils and an insight into his tortured mind. Its a story about an already fragile mind being pushed to a point where it finally snaps and shows how especially without the right help and support an avoidable monster is unleashed. We have all become so uncaring and selfish because of our own problems in life we fail to care and empathise with each other but its lack of care and understanding of mental ilness (treating it esentially like a joke) that leads Arther to finally snap. When he does finaly give its like a release for him all his sadness, anxiety and lack of confidence vanishes and we see man reshaped and reborn. Then theres his uncontrolable laugh which seems to come about when he's anxious or stressed and actually feels like it physicaly pains him everytime its released. Character progression is steady and realistic this man is clearly sick, had a rough upbringing, suffering from mental illness and he longs for a father figure and just to be loved which he tries to achieve from performing. Theres so many themes explored here the big one being how society and the media are partaily responsible for glamorising and encouraging violent behavior/serial killers making them popular/trendy and swaying other fragile tried and tested minds to rise up a follow the lead. Theres just so much to say about this film and its frying my head trying to get it all down and in readable state. At the end of the day Joker is fantastic and without a doubt the best comic book movie we have had to date setting the bar for all those that follow now. Its mature, graphic, highly depresing, intricate, unnerving, relevant and iteligent leaving such a thought provoking lasting impression that you cant help but be fearful and worried about the current state of the world we live in and how its changing for the worse becoming such a terifying and unsafe place.
Neil Goddard (3 KP) rated Hellboy (2019) in Movies
Feb 27, 2020
It all looked soooo promising
Contains spoilers, click to show
Let me say this upfront; David Harbour looks f---ing boss as Hellboy. The makeup is far superior to that of Ron Perlman, not that there was anything wrong with Ron Perlman’s, but with this new incarnation it’s all in the eyes. Deep red, sunken, pained. Sadly, that is all I can say about this movie that is one hundred percent genuinely positive. There are positives however, but they come with a big ‘however’.
I was initially a little concerned that we were getting a re-boot and not a direct sequel to Hellboy II: The Golden Army (2008), especially as it still seemed so recent and was so well made. I know it was over a decade ago but quality is timeless, yeah? Then David Harbour was cast and Neil Marshall announced as director. Great, thought I, an actor I like and a director who’s put out some solid genre material. I saw the first picture of Harbour as Hellboy and I was genuinely excited. I saw the trailer and again, excited. Then I watched the film.
Eurgh, where to start?
Firstly, Ian McShane’s initial voice over is clunky and ill fitting, then they throw in some b@llocks about King Arthur and Excalibur. I had my first wobble here, as some of the effects seemed less than special.
Cue opening titles.
The film starts with a Mexican wrestling match that is purely exposition to let us know Hellboy is a hard drinking and hard fighting anti-hero working for an organisation that deals with the paranormal. The make up for his vampiric opponent is also great (can’t fault the makeup department), but the scene seemed superfluous. We get the nubbin of the story forming now; some horrible witchy wench from way back when was cut into bits and flung around jolly old England to prevent her from spreading a right ‘orrible plague. Turns out a potty-mouthed Liverpudlian pig-monster is collecting said bits in the hope of putting her back together in exchange for his normal appearance. Scouse pig-monster is quite entertaining.
Hellboy goes to England at the request of an upper-class paranormal society to help them kill giants; this goes t1ts up. Again, this seems like unnecessary exposition to introduce Alice, a medium who he rescued as a baby, who now rescues him in a transit van. We also get introduced to M11’s Agent Daimio. There something wrong with him, he keeps injecting himself with a serum to stop something happening. I knew at this point we’d get to see what it was eventually, probably at a juncture where something is needed to rescue someone important. However, at this point I had a feeling it would be bad, I just didn’t know how bad.
There some more fighting, some good effects, some mediocre effects and some terrible effects. There’s some good one-liners, there’s some dull and/or terrible dialogue and then we get the film’s conclusion.
There’s something I’ve been putting off mentioning as I didn’t want the entire review to be about it, and it could have been; the witchy wench at the heart of all this paranormal consternation, Nimue, is played by Milla Jovovich and she is terrible. From when she first opens her mouth to her predictable demise, she is terrible. Terrible. TERRIBLE.
I love some of the Resident Evil films but all she’s required to do is some slow-motion scissor kicks and shoot zombies and zombie-dogs in the face. She is tolerated, rather than enjoyed. Here she is emoting, or at least I think that’s what she was going for, and as a depiction of an evil entity bent of the destruction of all mankind, she is, for want of a better word, cack.
David Harbour and the Hellboy franchise deserve better than this. To be blunt, the franchise has better than this and Mike Mignola should be a bit more f---ing precious with his creation.
Hellboy (2004) was genuinely exciting; it was an origin story that bought that story full circle for its thrilling and apocalyptical conclusion. It has a wonderful nemesis, great support and breath-taking visuals. The re-tread of the origin story in Hellboy (2019) is, again, one more unnecessary diversion from a sketchy plot, which, for all its meagre bones takes a f-ck load of time to tell.
Hellboy II: The Golden Army (2008) was equally impressive. It also introduced a fully formed community of creatures and customs hiding alongside mankind. It did so with nonchalant aplomb. Nothing seemed irrelevant or forced. For two films with almost identical running times, Hellboy (2019) tells less of a story with way more waffle.
So, I did mention there were some positives. David Harbour is great. He’s dour, sarcastic, defiant and funny, he just has no engaging story in which to be all those things. Ian McShane is good as the father figure but he is overshadowed by memories of the late, unbelievably great John Hurt. The story of a witch trying to destroy mankind is solid fantasy movie gold and the unleashing of her plague late in the final act is suitably hellish; bizarre demons emerging from city streets and tearing humans limb from limb, it’s bloody wonderful and wonderfully bloody. They all could have come straight out of a Clive Barker fever dream. However, it’s too little too late, by this point in the story we’ve had too many cutaways, too much shoddy CGI, and Agent Daimio stinking up many a scene with his ‘will he won’t he’ turn into something rubbish… he does.
The worst part of all this is I don’t know if they can come back from this. The film may have sunk the franchise at least for the next few years.
I do however, look forward to a re-boot in a decade or so, if we haven’t all been assimilated by aliens, overrun by AI robots or decimated by a supernatural plague bought on by some witchy wench with an axe to grind.
THREE WORD SUMMATION: Big Red Turd.
I was initially a little concerned that we were getting a re-boot and not a direct sequel to Hellboy II: The Golden Army (2008), especially as it still seemed so recent and was so well made. I know it was over a decade ago but quality is timeless, yeah? Then David Harbour was cast and Neil Marshall announced as director. Great, thought I, an actor I like and a director who’s put out some solid genre material. I saw the first picture of Harbour as Hellboy and I was genuinely excited. I saw the trailer and again, excited. Then I watched the film.
Eurgh, where to start?
Firstly, Ian McShane’s initial voice over is clunky and ill fitting, then they throw in some b@llocks about King Arthur and Excalibur. I had my first wobble here, as some of the effects seemed less than special.
Cue opening titles.
The film starts with a Mexican wrestling match that is purely exposition to let us know Hellboy is a hard drinking and hard fighting anti-hero working for an organisation that deals with the paranormal. The make up for his vampiric opponent is also great (can’t fault the makeup department), but the scene seemed superfluous. We get the nubbin of the story forming now; some horrible witchy wench from way back when was cut into bits and flung around jolly old England to prevent her from spreading a right ‘orrible plague. Turns out a potty-mouthed Liverpudlian pig-monster is collecting said bits in the hope of putting her back together in exchange for his normal appearance. Scouse pig-monster is quite entertaining.
Hellboy goes to England at the request of an upper-class paranormal society to help them kill giants; this goes t1ts up. Again, this seems like unnecessary exposition to introduce Alice, a medium who he rescued as a baby, who now rescues him in a transit van. We also get introduced to M11’s Agent Daimio. There something wrong with him, he keeps injecting himself with a serum to stop something happening. I knew at this point we’d get to see what it was eventually, probably at a juncture where something is needed to rescue someone important. However, at this point I had a feeling it would be bad, I just didn’t know how bad.
There some more fighting, some good effects, some mediocre effects and some terrible effects. There’s some good one-liners, there’s some dull and/or terrible dialogue and then we get the film’s conclusion.
There’s something I’ve been putting off mentioning as I didn’t want the entire review to be about it, and it could have been; the witchy wench at the heart of all this paranormal consternation, Nimue, is played by Milla Jovovich and she is terrible. From when she first opens her mouth to her predictable demise, she is terrible. Terrible. TERRIBLE.
I love some of the Resident Evil films but all she’s required to do is some slow-motion scissor kicks and shoot zombies and zombie-dogs in the face. She is tolerated, rather than enjoyed. Here she is emoting, or at least I think that’s what she was going for, and as a depiction of an evil entity bent of the destruction of all mankind, she is, for want of a better word, cack.
David Harbour and the Hellboy franchise deserve better than this. To be blunt, the franchise has better than this and Mike Mignola should be a bit more f---ing precious with his creation.
Hellboy (2004) was genuinely exciting; it was an origin story that bought that story full circle for its thrilling and apocalyptical conclusion. It has a wonderful nemesis, great support and breath-taking visuals. The re-tread of the origin story in Hellboy (2019) is, again, one more unnecessary diversion from a sketchy plot, which, for all its meagre bones takes a f-ck load of time to tell.
Hellboy II: The Golden Army (2008) was equally impressive. It also introduced a fully formed community of creatures and customs hiding alongside mankind. It did so with nonchalant aplomb. Nothing seemed irrelevant or forced. For two films with almost identical running times, Hellboy (2019) tells less of a story with way more waffle.
So, I did mention there were some positives. David Harbour is great. He’s dour, sarcastic, defiant and funny, he just has no engaging story in which to be all those things. Ian McShane is good as the father figure but he is overshadowed by memories of the late, unbelievably great John Hurt. The story of a witch trying to destroy mankind is solid fantasy movie gold and the unleashing of her plague late in the final act is suitably hellish; bizarre demons emerging from city streets and tearing humans limb from limb, it’s bloody wonderful and wonderfully bloody. They all could have come straight out of a Clive Barker fever dream. However, it’s too little too late, by this point in the story we’ve had too many cutaways, too much shoddy CGI, and Agent Daimio stinking up many a scene with his ‘will he won’t he’ turn into something rubbish… he does.
The worst part of all this is I don’t know if they can come back from this. The film may have sunk the franchise at least for the next few years.
I do however, look forward to a re-boot in a decade or so, if we haven’t all been assimilated by aliens, overrun by AI robots or decimated by a supernatural plague bought on by some witchy wench with an axe to grind.
THREE WORD SUMMATION: Big Red Turd.
Purple Phoenix Games (2266 KP) rated Shadow Kingdoms of Valeria in Tabletop Games
Jan 5, 2022
As you’ve read in our previous reviews, we are BIG fans of the Valeria-verse games. Whether we have to recruit adventurers for quests, build a thriving village, or traverse the lands to protect its people from various Monsters, we are all about this realm. For this newest installation in the series, the tables have been flipped on us – because doesn’t it get tiring always being the ‘good guys’? Shadow Kingdoms of Valeria allows players to embrace their inner dark side and fight back against these ‘heroes’ to reclaim dominance over the lands. Sometimes, it just feels good to be bad!
Shadow Kingdoms of Valeria is a game of worker placement and dice drafting/pool building in which players are trying to amass the most VP by the end of the game. Played over a series of rounds, players will take turns moving their Warden, drafting dice, and performing various actions. To setup, place the main board in the center of the play area. Shuffle and place the Battle Plan deck, Award cards, and Champion decks in their corresponding locations. Fill the dice bag with the requisite number of dice for your player count, and draw/roll/place the listed number of dice in each of the 5 Shrines (areas) of the main game board. A specified number of Gems are placed in the appropriate Shrine, and each player places their score marker on the 0 space of the score track. Each player receives a player board, random Campaign Map, Warden and Conquest Markers in their chosen color, as well as markers for Gold, Influence, and Magic. Choose a starting player, and the game is ready to begin! The setup for a 2-player game is pictured below.
On your turn, you will move your Warden from its current location to one of the other 5 locations on the board. Whichever location you choose dictates what actions you may take this turn, and are as follows: Gem Shrine, Magic Shrine, Champions Shrine, Gold Shrine, Tactics Shrine, or your own Camp. When placing your Warden at any location (with the exception of your own Camp), you will first select one of the dice found at that Shrine and place it on an open space of your player board. You may not move to a Shrine if it has no dice! After taking a die, you may perform the action associated with your chosen location. The Gem Shrine allows you to take 1 Gem, which can be used to manipulate dice in future turns. At the Magic Shrine, you may gain 2 Magic or claim 1 Award card. Magic can be spent in the game to manipulate dice or partially refresh the Champion/Battle Plan decks, and Award cards give you VP and can be claimed once you have met their requisite conditions. The Champions Shrine grants you the opportunity to buy a Champion card. Champions can provide either Immediate, Ongoing, or End-Game effects. The Gold Shrine allows you to gain Gold (used to purchase Champions and Battle Plans), and the Tactics Shrine allows you to buy a Battle Plan to be placed in your reserve on your player board.
The final location, your own Camp, is on your player board. When you place your Warden here, you are committing to perform a Battle. To do so, select which Battle Plan you wish to complete (either from your reserve, or pay Gold to buy directly from the Battle Plan line), and place it on your player board. All Battle Plans have certain dice requirements that need to be met in order to be completed. Select and manipulate which dice you want to use for your chosen Battle Plan, and add up your total Strength. Compare your Strength to your Influence marker – the lower of the two will be your total strength for this battle. Check the chart on your player board to find the number of VP you earn for the total Strength level achieved in the Battle, and immediately move your score marker the appropriate number of spaces. After performing a Battle, you get to level up your player board. During the game setup, each player receives 10 Conquest Markers that are housed on their player board, blocking/locking certain bonuses, abilities, and dice slots. After a Battle, you may remove 1 Conquest Marker from your player board (granting you a new bonus/ability for future turns), and place it on your Campaign Map. Campaign Maps have nine different slots that will grant you differing rewards. Once you have moved your Conquest Marker, return all dice used in this Battle to the dice bag, and move your completed Battle Plan card to the side of your player board. Your turn then ends and the game moves to the next player.
The game continues in this fashion, with players moving their Wardens, collecting dice, and performing actions, until one player has completed their 7th Battle Plan. The round continues until all players have had an equal number of turns, and then players add up any remaining VP. The player who has accumulated the most VP is then declared the winner!
It really should come as no surprise to you that I love this game. Beyond just the Valeria-verse theme, though, the gameplay is more strategic than I originally thought. Yes, it’s a worker placement and dice drafting game, but the underlying strategy is really what makes it great. You see, the dice in the game have 3 different elements that affect your strategy. First is the color: each color matches a Faction, and different Factions are required to complete specific Battle Plans. Next, is the actual die value: you want higher numbers to get a higher Strength, which equates to more VP when completing Battle Plans. And lastly is the discount: depending on the face value of the die, you will receive a discount towards purchasing Champions, Battle Plans, or collecting gold. The lower the face value of the die, the higher the discount, and vice versa. So yeah, maybe taking a 1 value die won’t really help in the Battle Plan, but the amount of gold it allows you to collect might be worth it. You have those 3 things to consider for dice alone! And that doesn’t even take into account which Champions you might want to buy, or what Battle Plans would be beneficial to you.
Another neat strategic element are the Conquest Markers on your player board. Everyone starts with the same number/placement of Conquest Markers, but as the game progresses, players may resolve them in various ways. There is no ‘correct’ order in which to move Conquest Markers – it all comes down to your strategy. Maybe you want more dice right off the bat, so you remove those first. Or maybe you want to be able to reserve more than 1 Battle Plan at a time, so you go for that one. It’s going to be different for every player, and it’ll be different every game. It all depends on the layout of the main board, and which dice and actions are available to you at any given time. There are so many strategic considerations throughout the entire game, and it keeps all players actively engaged.
Components. No surprise here, but the component quality is great, which is to be expected of Daily Magic Games. The cardboard is all thick and chunky, the wooden tokens nice and sturdy, and the cards are easy to manipulate and clear to read. The artwork is, in my opinion, one of the greatest things about the Valeria games, and Shadow Kingdoms is no exception. When getting the game set up, sometimes I find myself just looking through the cards and really appreciating the artwork. So all in all, great production quality here.
Does Shadow Kingdoms of Valeria climb the ranks to my favorite Valeria game? Not quite, but I have to say honestly that it’s getting there. The gameplay is solid and straightforward, the strategic implications are vast, and the components make the game feel awesome. And to get the Monster perspective in this universe is a neat twist that I otherwise would not really have thought of. If you’re a fan of the Valeria games, definitely check this one out. Or if you’re just a fan of worker placement, with some unique elements of drafting, then I highly recommend this one as well. Purple Phoenix Games gives it a mighty 5 / 6. Check it out. I don’t think you’ll be disappointed.
Shadow Kingdoms of Valeria is a game of worker placement and dice drafting/pool building in which players are trying to amass the most VP by the end of the game. Played over a series of rounds, players will take turns moving their Warden, drafting dice, and performing various actions. To setup, place the main board in the center of the play area. Shuffle and place the Battle Plan deck, Award cards, and Champion decks in their corresponding locations. Fill the dice bag with the requisite number of dice for your player count, and draw/roll/place the listed number of dice in each of the 5 Shrines (areas) of the main game board. A specified number of Gems are placed in the appropriate Shrine, and each player places their score marker on the 0 space of the score track. Each player receives a player board, random Campaign Map, Warden and Conquest Markers in their chosen color, as well as markers for Gold, Influence, and Magic. Choose a starting player, and the game is ready to begin! The setup for a 2-player game is pictured below.
On your turn, you will move your Warden from its current location to one of the other 5 locations on the board. Whichever location you choose dictates what actions you may take this turn, and are as follows: Gem Shrine, Magic Shrine, Champions Shrine, Gold Shrine, Tactics Shrine, or your own Camp. When placing your Warden at any location (with the exception of your own Camp), you will first select one of the dice found at that Shrine and place it on an open space of your player board. You may not move to a Shrine if it has no dice! After taking a die, you may perform the action associated with your chosen location. The Gem Shrine allows you to take 1 Gem, which can be used to manipulate dice in future turns. At the Magic Shrine, you may gain 2 Magic or claim 1 Award card. Magic can be spent in the game to manipulate dice or partially refresh the Champion/Battle Plan decks, and Award cards give you VP and can be claimed once you have met their requisite conditions. The Champions Shrine grants you the opportunity to buy a Champion card. Champions can provide either Immediate, Ongoing, or End-Game effects. The Gold Shrine allows you to gain Gold (used to purchase Champions and Battle Plans), and the Tactics Shrine allows you to buy a Battle Plan to be placed in your reserve on your player board.
The final location, your own Camp, is on your player board. When you place your Warden here, you are committing to perform a Battle. To do so, select which Battle Plan you wish to complete (either from your reserve, or pay Gold to buy directly from the Battle Plan line), and place it on your player board. All Battle Plans have certain dice requirements that need to be met in order to be completed. Select and manipulate which dice you want to use for your chosen Battle Plan, and add up your total Strength. Compare your Strength to your Influence marker – the lower of the two will be your total strength for this battle. Check the chart on your player board to find the number of VP you earn for the total Strength level achieved in the Battle, and immediately move your score marker the appropriate number of spaces. After performing a Battle, you get to level up your player board. During the game setup, each player receives 10 Conquest Markers that are housed on their player board, blocking/locking certain bonuses, abilities, and dice slots. After a Battle, you may remove 1 Conquest Marker from your player board (granting you a new bonus/ability for future turns), and place it on your Campaign Map. Campaign Maps have nine different slots that will grant you differing rewards. Once you have moved your Conquest Marker, return all dice used in this Battle to the dice bag, and move your completed Battle Plan card to the side of your player board. Your turn then ends and the game moves to the next player.
The game continues in this fashion, with players moving their Wardens, collecting dice, and performing actions, until one player has completed their 7th Battle Plan. The round continues until all players have had an equal number of turns, and then players add up any remaining VP. The player who has accumulated the most VP is then declared the winner!
It really should come as no surprise to you that I love this game. Beyond just the Valeria-verse theme, though, the gameplay is more strategic than I originally thought. Yes, it’s a worker placement and dice drafting game, but the underlying strategy is really what makes it great. You see, the dice in the game have 3 different elements that affect your strategy. First is the color: each color matches a Faction, and different Factions are required to complete specific Battle Plans. Next, is the actual die value: you want higher numbers to get a higher Strength, which equates to more VP when completing Battle Plans. And lastly is the discount: depending on the face value of the die, you will receive a discount towards purchasing Champions, Battle Plans, or collecting gold. The lower the face value of the die, the higher the discount, and vice versa. So yeah, maybe taking a 1 value die won’t really help in the Battle Plan, but the amount of gold it allows you to collect might be worth it. You have those 3 things to consider for dice alone! And that doesn’t even take into account which Champions you might want to buy, or what Battle Plans would be beneficial to you.
Another neat strategic element are the Conquest Markers on your player board. Everyone starts with the same number/placement of Conquest Markers, but as the game progresses, players may resolve them in various ways. There is no ‘correct’ order in which to move Conquest Markers – it all comes down to your strategy. Maybe you want more dice right off the bat, so you remove those first. Or maybe you want to be able to reserve more than 1 Battle Plan at a time, so you go for that one. It’s going to be different for every player, and it’ll be different every game. It all depends on the layout of the main board, and which dice and actions are available to you at any given time. There are so many strategic considerations throughout the entire game, and it keeps all players actively engaged.
Components. No surprise here, but the component quality is great, which is to be expected of Daily Magic Games. The cardboard is all thick and chunky, the wooden tokens nice and sturdy, and the cards are easy to manipulate and clear to read. The artwork is, in my opinion, one of the greatest things about the Valeria games, and Shadow Kingdoms is no exception. When getting the game set up, sometimes I find myself just looking through the cards and really appreciating the artwork. So all in all, great production quality here.
Does Shadow Kingdoms of Valeria climb the ranks to my favorite Valeria game? Not quite, but I have to say honestly that it’s getting there. The gameplay is solid and straightforward, the strategic implications are vast, and the components make the game feel awesome. And to get the Monster perspective in this universe is a neat twist that I otherwise would not really have thought of. If you’re a fan of the Valeria games, definitely check this one out. Or if you’re just a fan of worker placement, with some unique elements of drafting, then I highly recommend this one as well. Purple Phoenix Games gives it a mighty 5 / 6. Check it out. I don’t think you’ll be disappointed.
Heather Cranmer (2721 KP) rated Alice in Zombieland - White Rabbit Chronicles in Books
Jun 7, 2018
(This review can also be found on my blog at <a href="http://themisadventuresofatwentysomething.blogspot.co.uk">The (Mis)Adventures of a Twenty-Something Year Old Girl</a>).
I've been dying to read this book since I first heard about it months ago. I love zombies because, well, zombies are just so darn cool! However, I think I built myself up a bit too much and bought in to the hype a bit too much. I didn't think the book was bad, but I didn't think it was that great either.
Alice, or Ali for short, thinks her father is crazy. He has so many rules when it comes to his daughters, especially things that involve go out during the night. He's worried about the monsters, but Alice just thinks he's going insane until one night, her whole family is killed in a car crash. It is then that she sees her first monster. Maybe her dad wasn't crazy after all. Alice will have to enlist the help of the school's bad crowd if she wants answers, and that means getting close to Cole Holland, the resident bad boy. Will Alice have her heart broken? Will she even be able to survive long enough to have her heart broken?
Okay, I absolutely, positively love, love, love the title of this book: Alice in Zombieland. It just has a certain ring to it. I'd say the title definitely describes the story. If I were to sum up this book in three words, Alice in Zombieland would be exactly what I'd say.
I do think the cover is pretty, but I feel that it's lacking. I do love the little details there are to see when you look closer at the cover, but as I said, something is missing from the cover. I think it would've been cool, maybe, to have a few zombies on the cover as well.
The world building is fantastic! Gena Showalter makes it feel as if a zombie apocalypse is actually happening or really could happen. It's so easy to get lost in Alice's world and forget that you're actually just reading a story. The author makes the world of zombies come to life, and it does get a bit scary.
The pacing is what really bothered me. I felt as if it was a bit all over the place. At the very beginning, I felt I was losing the will to live as the pacing was so slow. Then it got a bit better, then it'd get slow, then it'd get better again. My interest in this book was all over the place. I never knew what to expect in the next chapter. Was it going to be super slow or fast paced?
The dialogue was believable for the teenagers. They spoke exactly how I'd imagine teens of today to speak. However, Alice has a seven year old sister who spoke like she was at least thirteen years old. Her vocabulary, and the way she spoke were definitely not normal for a seven year old. With that said, I did enjoy the dialogue immensely especially when it came to interactions between Kat and Alice. I even loved the sarcastic interactions between Cole and Alice. There wasn't any swearing in this book which I admired.
I thought the characters were fantastic and very believable. I loved how Alice was willing to do whatever it took to avenge her family and how she wasn't willing to take anything from anybody. Cole is your typical bad boy: moody, snarly, sarcastic, etc. There is something likable about Cole, and as the story progresses, we find out a little bit about why Cole is the way he is. My favourite character had to be Kat though. I loved her witty and sarcastic sense of humour. In fact, I wish I could be like Kat. She definitely had me laughing quite a bit. The only non-believable character was Alice's little sister Emma. As stated in the previous paragraph, she didn't speak like a normal seven year old, nor did she act like an everyday seven year old. Because of that, I had a hard time relating to her as a character.
One thing I really loved about this book was the chapter names. I loved how they were zombie related but still had the Alice in Wonderland feel about them. Unfortunately, this was not enough to warrant a higher rating for this book. Perhaps it's just me though as this book does have quite high reviews, but I just couldn't enjoy it that much. I might carry on with the series in the hopes it gets better, but I'm not dying to read the next book in the series.
I'd recommend this book to those aged 14+ if I really had to recommend it. However, I'd say don't waste your money. Rent it from a library or borrow it if you really want to read it.
Alice in Zombieland (The White Rabbit Chronicles #1) by Gena Showalter gets a 3.25 out of 5 from me.
I've been dying to read this book since I first heard about it months ago. I love zombies because, well, zombies are just so darn cool! However, I think I built myself up a bit too much and bought in to the hype a bit too much. I didn't think the book was bad, but I didn't think it was that great either.
Alice, or Ali for short, thinks her father is crazy. He has so many rules when it comes to his daughters, especially things that involve go out during the night. He's worried about the monsters, but Alice just thinks he's going insane until one night, her whole family is killed in a car crash. It is then that she sees her first monster. Maybe her dad wasn't crazy after all. Alice will have to enlist the help of the school's bad crowd if she wants answers, and that means getting close to Cole Holland, the resident bad boy. Will Alice have her heart broken? Will she even be able to survive long enough to have her heart broken?
Okay, I absolutely, positively love, love, love the title of this book: Alice in Zombieland. It just has a certain ring to it. I'd say the title definitely describes the story. If I were to sum up this book in three words, Alice in Zombieland would be exactly what I'd say.
I do think the cover is pretty, but I feel that it's lacking. I do love the little details there are to see when you look closer at the cover, but as I said, something is missing from the cover. I think it would've been cool, maybe, to have a few zombies on the cover as well.
The world building is fantastic! Gena Showalter makes it feel as if a zombie apocalypse is actually happening or really could happen. It's so easy to get lost in Alice's world and forget that you're actually just reading a story. The author makes the world of zombies come to life, and it does get a bit scary.
The pacing is what really bothered me. I felt as if it was a bit all over the place. At the very beginning, I felt I was losing the will to live as the pacing was so slow. Then it got a bit better, then it'd get slow, then it'd get better again. My interest in this book was all over the place. I never knew what to expect in the next chapter. Was it going to be super slow or fast paced?
The dialogue was believable for the teenagers. They spoke exactly how I'd imagine teens of today to speak. However, Alice has a seven year old sister who spoke like she was at least thirteen years old. Her vocabulary, and the way she spoke were definitely not normal for a seven year old. With that said, I did enjoy the dialogue immensely especially when it came to interactions between Kat and Alice. I even loved the sarcastic interactions between Cole and Alice. There wasn't any swearing in this book which I admired.
I thought the characters were fantastic and very believable. I loved how Alice was willing to do whatever it took to avenge her family and how she wasn't willing to take anything from anybody. Cole is your typical bad boy: moody, snarly, sarcastic, etc. There is something likable about Cole, and as the story progresses, we find out a little bit about why Cole is the way he is. My favourite character had to be Kat though. I loved her witty and sarcastic sense of humour. In fact, I wish I could be like Kat. She definitely had me laughing quite a bit. The only non-believable character was Alice's little sister Emma. As stated in the previous paragraph, she didn't speak like a normal seven year old, nor did she act like an everyday seven year old. Because of that, I had a hard time relating to her as a character.
One thing I really loved about this book was the chapter names. I loved how they were zombie related but still had the Alice in Wonderland feel about them. Unfortunately, this was not enough to warrant a higher rating for this book. Perhaps it's just me though as this book does have quite high reviews, but I just couldn't enjoy it that much. I might carry on with the series in the hopes it gets better, but I'm not dying to read the next book in the series.
I'd recommend this book to those aged 14+ if I really had to recommend it. However, I'd say don't waste your money. Rent it from a library or borrow it if you really want to read it.
Alice in Zombieland (The White Rabbit Chronicles #1) by Gena Showalter gets a 3.25 out of 5 from me.
Mothergamer (1517 KP) rated the PlayStation 3 version of Catherine in Video Games
Apr 3, 2019
First of all, let me say that while I know a lot of you love Atlus games as much as I do, Catherine is not a typical video game. In fact, it is a sliding block puzzle game with a great story woven in. If you're not big on puzzle games, Catherine may not be the video game for you. However, if you genuinely enjoy challenging puzzles and are a puzzle game addict like myself, Catherine definitely gives you your money's worth.
Catherine is much more than a puzzle game however. The story is definitely what brings everything together. It addresses adult situations, things that people go through or suffer such as, fear of commitment, infidelity, and about how some people are childish and won't take responsibility for their actions. It's a unique title and simply an adult video game because it involves adult situations and the issues we have as we get older.
The story centers around Vincent Brooks who has a girlfriend by the name of Katherine. They're both in their early thirties and Katherine's biological clock is ticking which she hints at to him by telling him her mother has asked where the relationship is going. Vincent isn't sure he's ready for that level of commitment yet and says as much to his buddies he hangs out with at the local bar.
One night while hanging out at the bar mulling over a sliding block nightmare he had the night before, he runs into a beautiful blonde bombshell by the name of Catherine. Apparently after blacking out, he wakes up after another nightmare to find that she has spent the night. Of course, Vincent freaks out completely. Now, Vincent has to make a choice between lust and love, have good times with Catherine or finally make a commitment to Katherine.
Vincent's nightmares continue and even worse, people actually seem to be dying in them.Healthy men in their twenties and thirties are found dead in their beds and there seems to be no reason for it. A rumor goes around that it is a woman cursing all these men for being unfaithful. Is the rumor true? Vincent has to find out, climbing for his life one nightmare at a time.
Vincent Brooks In His Nightmare
Vincent's nightmares are the heart and soul of the puzzle sections. Every night, he wakes up surrounded by sheep, with horns growing out of his head and a voice taunting him to come up. There are items along the way that help you with the puzzles, but many obstacles as well involving sheep that are trying to climb also as the world crumbles behind them. You have a reason to climb, survival and the inner demons Vincent is struggling with. If you don't climb, you die. One example of this is, there's a giant monster version of Vincent's girlfriend Katherine, trying to grab him and smash the heck out of him. If Vincent's not quick enough to climb all those blocks to the top, he will surely die.
Every night, there's a different puzzle with each nightmare and depending on how quickly you get to the top and how many points you get, you can win gold, silver, or bronze trophies. The complexity of the puzzles is very interesting and the story is well written and captures your attention perfectly. It sounds silly, but you actually feel a sense of accomplishment when you have figured out a rather difficult puzzle.
Solve The Puzzle Or Die Trying
This brings up the next point. Some of the puzzles in Catherine will make you want to punch every living thing in your path. The difficulty level is excruciatingly high on a variety of them. There's no shame in playing a game on the Easy level. I know I will try a game on Easy first, to get a feel for the controls, to see how well the game plays, and to have a chance to genuinely enjoy the story that is being told. Then I will play again working on all the achievements and trophies, and improving my game scores. This is what I did with Catherine and some of those puzzles made me want to punch whoever designed it right in the face. A challenge is all well and good and definitely in a puzzle game, but when the game is on the Easy setting and it's still making you weep bitter tears of defeat, that is a big problem. Don't believe me? Apparently the difficulty level was such a destroyer of worlds, that the Japanese gamers complained about it. Frankly, that said quite a lot to me about how high Atlus raised the bar on these puzzles. The complaints were so many, that Atlus promised to put a patch in that would make the game much less difficult on Easy. I do understand their reasoning that they wanted the game to be challenging, so that players could reap huge rewards when they solved a puzzle, but the Easy setting in a game should be just that, easy and not throw people into the deep end with a sink or swim attitude. That's what the Hard and Nightmare settings are for.
However, there is hope! There is a secret trick to get to a Very Easy mode. It's a secret that Atlus put in to make the game a cake walk for players. When you access the main menu of the game, highlight Golden Playhouse and hold the back or select button for a few seconds. The screen will flash with a prompt telling you Very Easy mode has been activated. From there, the puzzles are much easier, and you can actually enjoy the story without those resentful feelings and frustration. It is a nice touch, and I give kudos to Atlus for caring enough about fans of their games to put it in there, because they do want people to enjoy the game.
Overalll, the game is great. The story is well thought out and acted out well with a great voice cast. There are also interesting characters that Vincent meets in the bar and can talk to, even help them with their issues. There is also a fun mini game in Catherine, called Rapunzel that is a sliding block puzzle game also that gives you pretty good rewards when you beat all the levels, along with opportunities to unlock music from various Atlus games and the Catherine game to play on the jukebox in the bar.
I have always loved the artwork in Atlus video games and Catherine is no exception. Right down to the animated short cut scenes, everything is colorful, seamless, and you really appreciate how everything ties together. The music, the voice cast, and the game play all mesh into a fantastic video game. Catherine is definitely a game worth having in any gaming enthusiast's collection and absolutely worth playing more than once.
Catherine is much more than a puzzle game however. The story is definitely what brings everything together. It addresses adult situations, things that people go through or suffer such as, fear of commitment, infidelity, and about how some people are childish and won't take responsibility for their actions. It's a unique title and simply an adult video game because it involves adult situations and the issues we have as we get older.
The story centers around Vincent Brooks who has a girlfriend by the name of Katherine. They're both in their early thirties and Katherine's biological clock is ticking which she hints at to him by telling him her mother has asked where the relationship is going. Vincent isn't sure he's ready for that level of commitment yet and says as much to his buddies he hangs out with at the local bar.
One night while hanging out at the bar mulling over a sliding block nightmare he had the night before, he runs into a beautiful blonde bombshell by the name of Catherine. Apparently after blacking out, he wakes up after another nightmare to find that she has spent the night. Of course, Vincent freaks out completely. Now, Vincent has to make a choice between lust and love, have good times with Catherine or finally make a commitment to Katherine.
Vincent's nightmares continue and even worse, people actually seem to be dying in them.Healthy men in their twenties and thirties are found dead in their beds and there seems to be no reason for it. A rumor goes around that it is a woman cursing all these men for being unfaithful. Is the rumor true? Vincent has to find out, climbing for his life one nightmare at a time.
Vincent Brooks In His Nightmare
Vincent's nightmares are the heart and soul of the puzzle sections. Every night, he wakes up surrounded by sheep, with horns growing out of his head and a voice taunting him to come up. There are items along the way that help you with the puzzles, but many obstacles as well involving sheep that are trying to climb also as the world crumbles behind them. You have a reason to climb, survival and the inner demons Vincent is struggling with. If you don't climb, you die. One example of this is, there's a giant monster version of Vincent's girlfriend Katherine, trying to grab him and smash the heck out of him. If Vincent's not quick enough to climb all those blocks to the top, he will surely die.
Every night, there's a different puzzle with each nightmare and depending on how quickly you get to the top and how many points you get, you can win gold, silver, or bronze trophies. The complexity of the puzzles is very interesting and the story is well written and captures your attention perfectly. It sounds silly, but you actually feel a sense of accomplishment when you have figured out a rather difficult puzzle.
Solve The Puzzle Or Die Trying
This brings up the next point. Some of the puzzles in Catherine will make you want to punch every living thing in your path. The difficulty level is excruciatingly high on a variety of them. There's no shame in playing a game on the Easy level. I know I will try a game on Easy first, to get a feel for the controls, to see how well the game plays, and to have a chance to genuinely enjoy the story that is being told. Then I will play again working on all the achievements and trophies, and improving my game scores. This is what I did with Catherine and some of those puzzles made me want to punch whoever designed it right in the face. A challenge is all well and good and definitely in a puzzle game, but when the game is on the Easy setting and it's still making you weep bitter tears of defeat, that is a big problem. Don't believe me? Apparently the difficulty level was such a destroyer of worlds, that the Japanese gamers complained about it. Frankly, that said quite a lot to me about how high Atlus raised the bar on these puzzles. The complaints were so many, that Atlus promised to put a patch in that would make the game much less difficult on Easy. I do understand their reasoning that they wanted the game to be challenging, so that players could reap huge rewards when they solved a puzzle, but the Easy setting in a game should be just that, easy and not throw people into the deep end with a sink or swim attitude. That's what the Hard and Nightmare settings are for.
However, there is hope! There is a secret trick to get to a Very Easy mode. It's a secret that Atlus put in to make the game a cake walk for players. When you access the main menu of the game, highlight Golden Playhouse and hold the back or select button for a few seconds. The screen will flash with a prompt telling you Very Easy mode has been activated. From there, the puzzles are much easier, and you can actually enjoy the story without those resentful feelings and frustration. It is a nice touch, and I give kudos to Atlus for caring enough about fans of their games to put it in there, because they do want people to enjoy the game.
Overalll, the game is great. The story is well thought out and acted out well with a great voice cast. There are also interesting characters that Vincent meets in the bar and can talk to, even help them with their issues. There is also a fun mini game in Catherine, called Rapunzel that is a sliding block puzzle game also that gives you pretty good rewards when you beat all the levels, along with opportunities to unlock music from various Atlus games and the Catherine game to play on the jukebox in the bar.
I have always loved the artwork in Atlus video games and Catherine is no exception. Right down to the animated short cut scenes, everything is colorful, seamless, and you really appreciate how everything ties together. The music, the voice cast, and the game play all mesh into a fantastic video game. Catherine is definitely a game worth having in any gaming enthusiast's collection and absolutely worth playing more than once.
Gareth von Kallenbach (971 KP) rated Moonfall (2022) in Movies
Feb 3, 2022
The late ’90s and early 2000s was filled with epic, over-the-top disaster movies focusing on all methods of world-ending cataclysmic events. Alien invasions as seen in Independence Day, set on destroying all humans and snatching our planet’s remaining resources, global warming resulting in floods and freezing temperatures, even threats of asteroids crashing into the earth. While many of these movies were ridiculous and epic at times, they all focused on a singular threat facing humankind and a group of ordinary (yet somehow extraordinary) people to save the planet and ourselves. Moonfall attempts to take another stab at the formula that made these movies famous (even infamous) resulting in some mixed and head-scratching results.
Moonfall, directed by Roland Emmerich, stars Halle Berry and Patrick Wilson as a pair of NASA astronauts that are attacked by a strange mechanical swarm while performing a routine satellite repair mission from the space shuttle Endeavor in the mid-1990s. The attack resulted in the death of one of the crew members and severely damaged the shuttle. Brian Harper (Wilson) and Jo Fowler (Berry) successfully return the shuttle to earth only to see Harper take the fall for the death of his crewman and the fall guy for a coverup to prevent the citizens of earth from truly understanding what they encountered.
Fast forward to current day and a “crazy” conspiracy theorist K.C Houseman, believing the moon to be a megastructure built by aliens, discovers that the moon’s orbit is rapidly eroding. He attempts to reach out to NASA and after several unsuccessful attempts releases his findings via social media. The top minds at NASA confirm what has been identified and estimate that they have only three weeks to execute a plan to prevent the moon from crashing into the earth destroying everything and everyone. The race for the survival of the planet is quickly on which will focus on not only the NASA “team”, but each of their family members.
Let me get this out of the way first, I personally loved many of Roland Emmerich’s wildly outlandish films. I thought Independence Day was fantastic, and even though many found The Day After Tomorrow a bit to preachy and ridiculous, I still found it entertaining for what it was. So, I was excited going into Moonfall. I was ready for a fun movie that I felt would be a mindless, fun adventure which was something I had really missed in many of the movies that had come out over the past year or two. Unfortunately, my aspirations (and even the low bar I had set my expectations for) would be quickly dashed.
Moonfall is a movie that struggles throughout to find an identity. I found myself instantly comparing several of Emmerich’s films during its roughly two-hour run time. At times its reminiscent of Independence Day, with its alien destruction of earth storyline, and then quickly jumps to a disaster film about the moon crashing into the earth. It’s as though Emmerich took pages of several of his previous films and cobbled them together into some sort of Frankenstein’s monster. There are so many plots and subplots going on that you never truly know what the main threat is. It touches on everything from the birth of humanity to the overly aggressive military, to the dumbing down of NASA all at the same time. With the exception of our heroes (and of course their entire families, because why not), everyone else is just resigned to the fact that nothing can be done. Riots of course breakout, the military is quick to decide to nuke the moon is somehow going to save the planet, and no level of crazy plan is off the table.
I’m happy to forgive an outrageous plot if the actors are able to pull it off with some semblance of believability. I know none of the actions have any real-world chance of success, and I can forgive plot holes for the sake of entertainment. Unfortunately, the acting is where Moonfall really lets the audience down. Each character is portrayed in a completely over-the-top fashion, it reminded me of watching a movie that is intentionally attempting to spoof another movie. The emotions are not believable, and the lines being delivered are literally derived from popular lines of other movies. Bonus points if you can identify which movie they are from as the film progresses. The saddest part is, this movie is trying to take itself seriously, it’s not intentionally being campy, for the sake of being campy. I think the character portrayals could have been forgiven if that was the case, but it’s clearly not. It’s actually a distraction when the story of a film is already struggling to deliver.
The movie effects go from truly spectacular, to overly CGI-infused. Ironically the space shots, which you think would be the hardest to pull off are some of its best, yet the vehicle driving scenes through the snow-covered townscape are some of the worst. It’s almost as though they spent so much of their budget on the space scenes that they had no money for the earth shots, which would be fine if they didn’t literally look so bad. It’s jarring going from one area to another and makes for a very inconsistent experience the entire time.
I believe one of the biggest tragedies of the film however is the absolutely blatant product placement. Yes, I understand that product placement has sadly been a staple in the film industry since the dawn of time. Yes, I understand that when someone is using a MacBook on-screen or riding a Peloton, it’s there for a reason. Moonfall however takes this to a Hallmark movie level. If you watch a Hallmark movie sponsored by Folgers for example, there will be clear shots of the Folgers coffee on the counter, with the cast explaining how much they love Folgers’s coffee, Moonfall utilizes this very trope. Kaspersky Anti-Virus is plastered on everything, even the Space Shuttle is protected with Kaspersky Anti-virus (which some might argue has other implications, but I won’t go there), and while avoiding looters driving through the snow-packed roads, do we really need the character to explain the need for the off-road settings on their Lexus? Talking about it is one thing, but do we really need to see the dial up-close and personal? It quickly takes you from the scene to a Lexus Christmas commercial and back again.
Sadly, Moonfall is a very disappointing film. If it were released in 1998 maybe it would be a super hit and I’d feel differently about it, but the industry has moved on since then. I had gone in knowing the film wouldn’t be realistic, but I was hoping it would at least be a nice escape from what is going on in the world today. As I have stated before, I’m a huge fan of Emmerich’s films, and while Moonfall may not be his absolute worst, it is one that will quickly be forgotten. I don’t even know if it’s one I’d revisit if it premiered on HBO or Showtime. As excited as I was, I just wouldn’t be able to recommend it.
Moonfall, directed by Roland Emmerich, stars Halle Berry and Patrick Wilson as a pair of NASA astronauts that are attacked by a strange mechanical swarm while performing a routine satellite repair mission from the space shuttle Endeavor in the mid-1990s. The attack resulted in the death of one of the crew members and severely damaged the shuttle. Brian Harper (Wilson) and Jo Fowler (Berry) successfully return the shuttle to earth only to see Harper take the fall for the death of his crewman and the fall guy for a coverup to prevent the citizens of earth from truly understanding what they encountered.
Fast forward to current day and a “crazy” conspiracy theorist K.C Houseman, believing the moon to be a megastructure built by aliens, discovers that the moon’s orbit is rapidly eroding. He attempts to reach out to NASA and after several unsuccessful attempts releases his findings via social media. The top minds at NASA confirm what has been identified and estimate that they have only three weeks to execute a plan to prevent the moon from crashing into the earth destroying everything and everyone. The race for the survival of the planet is quickly on which will focus on not only the NASA “team”, but each of their family members.
Let me get this out of the way first, I personally loved many of Roland Emmerich’s wildly outlandish films. I thought Independence Day was fantastic, and even though many found The Day After Tomorrow a bit to preachy and ridiculous, I still found it entertaining for what it was. So, I was excited going into Moonfall. I was ready for a fun movie that I felt would be a mindless, fun adventure which was something I had really missed in many of the movies that had come out over the past year or two. Unfortunately, my aspirations (and even the low bar I had set my expectations for) would be quickly dashed.
Moonfall is a movie that struggles throughout to find an identity. I found myself instantly comparing several of Emmerich’s films during its roughly two-hour run time. At times its reminiscent of Independence Day, with its alien destruction of earth storyline, and then quickly jumps to a disaster film about the moon crashing into the earth. It’s as though Emmerich took pages of several of his previous films and cobbled them together into some sort of Frankenstein’s monster. There are so many plots and subplots going on that you never truly know what the main threat is. It touches on everything from the birth of humanity to the overly aggressive military, to the dumbing down of NASA all at the same time. With the exception of our heroes (and of course their entire families, because why not), everyone else is just resigned to the fact that nothing can be done. Riots of course breakout, the military is quick to decide to nuke the moon is somehow going to save the planet, and no level of crazy plan is off the table.
I’m happy to forgive an outrageous plot if the actors are able to pull it off with some semblance of believability. I know none of the actions have any real-world chance of success, and I can forgive plot holes for the sake of entertainment. Unfortunately, the acting is where Moonfall really lets the audience down. Each character is portrayed in a completely over-the-top fashion, it reminded me of watching a movie that is intentionally attempting to spoof another movie. The emotions are not believable, and the lines being delivered are literally derived from popular lines of other movies. Bonus points if you can identify which movie they are from as the film progresses. The saddest part is, this movie is trying to take itself seriously, it’s not intentionally being campy, for the sake of being campy. I think the character portrayals could have been forgiven if that was the case, but it’s clearly not. It’s actually a distraction when the story of a film is already struggling to deliver.
The movie effects go from truly spectacular, to overly CGI-infused. Ironically the space shots, which you think would be the hardest to pull off are some of its best, yet the vehicle driving scenes through the snow-covered townscape are some of the worst. It’s almost as though they spent so much of their budget on the space scenes that they had no money for the earth shots, which would be fine if they didn’t literally look so bad. It’s jarring going from one area to another and makes for a very inconsistent experience the entire time.
I believe one of the biggest tragedies of the film however is the absolutely blatant product placement. Yes, I understand that product placement has sadly been a staple in the film industry since the dawn of time. Yes, I understand that when someone is using a MacBook on-screen or riding a Peloton, it’s there for a reason. Moonfall however takes this to a Hallmark movie level. If you watch a Hallmark movie sponsored by Folgers for example, there will be clear shots of the Folgers coffee on the counter, with the cast explaining how much they love Folgers’s coffee, Moonfall utilizes this very trope. Kaspersky Anti-Virus is plastered on everything, even the Space Shuttle is protected with Kaspersky Anti-virus (which some might argue has other implications, but I won’t go there), and while avoiding looters driving through the snow-packed roads, do we really need the character to explain the need for the off-road settings on their Lexus? Talking about it is one thing, but do we really need to see the dial up-close and personal? It quickly takes you from the scene to a Lexus Christmas commercial and back again.
Sadly, Moonfall is a very disappointing film. If it were released in 1998 maybe it would be a super hit and I’d feel differently about it, but the industry has moved on since then. I had gone in knowing the film wouldn’t be realistic, but I was hoping it would at least be a nice escape from what is going on in the world today. As I have stated before, I’m a huge fan of Emmerich’s films, and while Moonfall may not be his absolute worst, it is one that will quickly be forgotten. I don’t even know if it’s one I’d revisit if it premiered on HBO or Showtime. As excited as I was, I just wouldn’t be able to recommend it.
Purple Phoenix Games (2266 KP) rated Ghoulash: The Game of Card Calamity in Tabletop Games
Sep 3, 2019
Ghoulash! I cannot say that word without using a Dracula-esque accent nor without my tummy grumbling (goulash is a yummy traditional Hungarian dish). Anyway, lunch time hangriness aside, Ghoulash is not a new game. In fact, the original version of Ghoulash was released in 2001 under Ghoulash Games. It is a pen-and-paper dungeon crawler for 2 players that we are reviewing as well. This game we are reviewing here is a card version prototype. So how does it play?
In Ghoulash: The Game of Card Calamity (which I will shorten to Ghoulash for the purpose of this review – even though there is the OG Ghoulash as well, I think you know what I’m talking about) players are Ghoul hunters. Ghouls are monstrous green blobsters that are coming for you. You fight them by shooting Ghoo, a purply substance, at them to exploit their weak spots and vanquish them. The first Ghoul hunter to reach 10 Victory Points (VPs) will be crowned the winner!
DISCLAIMER: We were provided a prototype copy of this game for the purposes of this review. As this is a preview copy of the game, I do not know if the final rules or components will be similar or different to what we were provided. -T
To setup the game, shuffle the deck and place a 6×3 grid of cards in the middle of the table. This is the “floor” and will be the game board for the duration of the game. When the floor is out of cards (I will explain), set out a new 6×3 grid floor and continue play. Deal each hunter a hand of seven cards and you are ready to play!
Each of the face down cards that comprise the floor are opportunities for encounters. You, as a Ghoul hunter, will enter the floor from any border card. On your turn you may fill your hand up to your current hand limit – which changes based on whether you have taken wounds or not. Next you must move orthogonally onto a space that contains a card or an empty space, but you must move – or take your Action first, THEN move. If you move to a space with a card, you encounter the card. Depending on what type of card is flipped face up you will be taking cards into your hand, following Command instructions, or fighting Ghouls. When you have finished your turn it is the next hunter’s turn.
Should your flipped card reveal an Action or Special card, you simply collect the card into your hand. If the flipped card is an Battle card (which has Ghoo splats – like the ones pictured above on the far right), you must follow the Command instructions at the bottom of the card before collecting to your hand. And if it’s a Ghoul you will begin battle!
Battling Ghouls is mechanically simple, but the overall battle may not be. When you face a Ghoul its card will tell you what the strength of the monster is (the white number). It could have four, five, or six hit points (HPs). To vanquish the Ghoul you will need to play cards whose Ghoo value (splats) is equal to or greater than the Ghoul’s HP amount. From this point the other hunters can intervene in the battle by playing cards whose battle Ghoo tips the scales toward the Ghoul thus making it more difficult to defeat (a la the ganging up mechanic in Munchkin). As only one hunter may affect the battle in this way, it is the player’s cards whose strength is greater that wins the challenge. Now the original combatant must spend more Ghoo cards to overcome the super-buffed Ghoul. Should the hunter prevail they will collect the Ghoul card and display it in front of them to show the table how many VPs they have earned. If the hunter is unsuccessful in the battle, they suffer wounds in the amount of VPs that would have been awarded with a successful battle (the green dots at the bottom of the card). Wounds are reflected by cards in hand, so if a hunter suffers two wounds, their hand limit is now five instead of the original seven. Play continues in this fashion until a hunter has accumulated 10 VPs and earned victory!
Components. Per my disclaimer, the game that was sent to us is a prototype version of the completed game, so components may (and probably will) change or be improved as a result of further development, and/or a successful Kickstarter campaign. That said, I can comment only on the components that were provided to us. The game is a deck of cards in a deck box. The cards themselves are of fine quality. The art upon them is okay. Nothing too stellar, but it gets the job done. I think the art is one thing that can be improved with development. Don’t get me wrong, the art is not at all bad. Perhaps it’s the card layout or graphic design. Something with a bit more punch would be appreciated.
Our thoughts on this one are that it needs some sprucing up a bit. Yes, it is in prototype format currently, and we know that. The card design needs to be updated a bit, but the game itself was also lacking a bit. One of the major concerns we had when playing through it was the card grid of the floor. We did not use any sort of player marker, token, meeple, or anything to mark our locations, and I really think that may have helped. We just had a hard time visualizing where our hunter was in relation to the face-down cards and how many turns it would take us to travel to them. There were several times where we just guessed as to who was actually closer and they were able to encounter the card. I am unsure how to fix that without supplying a grid or some sort of tracker. We should have maybe just played with meeples or dice for position markers. Oh heck I just thought of this: we could have also placed out dice or whatever on an x and y axis to denote where floor cards should be. Ugh. Battles were run somewhat smoothly, even though there were times where I was down to one card because I had suffered so many wounds and I could not get a First-Aid Kit to save my life (literally). The battle challenges did not work with us and we were trying to find a good way to make them happen, but our minds must not have been at their peak. We weren’t quite sure if, like in Munchkin, you could just add one card to your challenge total, or if you had to commit the entire bunch of cards you wish to play. It is not clear in the rules, so we went with our guts.
Overall, this could be a good dungeon crawler type card game. The theme is good, but for us it didn’t quite click…yet. If it sounds like something you would like to have in your collection, check Kickstarter for the campaign (if Ghoulash Games decides to crowd-fund this), contact the publisher directly, or (depending on date you read this) purchase from your FLGS. Oh, and keep the Ghoo Gone away – this time Ghoo is good for your health!
In Ghoulash: The Game of Card Calamity (which I will shorten to Ghoulash for the purpose of this review – even though there is the OG Ghoulash as well, I think you know what I’m talking about) players are Ghoul hunters. Ghouls are monstrous green blobsters that are coming for you. You fight them by shooting Ghoo, a purply substance, at them to exploit their weak spots and vanquish them. The first Ghoul hunter to reach 10 Victory Points (VPs) will be crowned the winner!
DISCLAIMER: We were provided a prototype copy of this game for the purposes of this review. As this is a preview copy of the game, I do not know if the final rules or components will be similar or different to what we were provided. -T
To setup the game, shuffle the deck and place a 6×3 grid of cards in the middle of the table. This is the “floor” and will be the game board for the duration of the game. When the floor is out of cards (I will explain), set out a new 6×3 grid floor and continue play. Deal each hunter a hand of seven cards and you are ready to play!
Each of the face down cards that comprise the floor are opportunities for encounters. You, as a Ghoul hunter, will enter the floor from any border card. On your turn you may fill your hand up to your current hand limit – which changes based on whether you have taken wounds or not. Next you must move orthogonally onto a space that contains a card or an empty space, but you must move – or take your Action first, THEN move. If you move to a space with a card, you encounter the card. Depending on what type of card is flipped face up you will be taking cards into your hand, following Command instructions, or fighting Ghouls. When you have finished your turn it is the next hunter’s turn.
Should your flipped card reveal an Action or Special card, you simply collect the card into your hand. If the flipped card is an Battle card (which has Ghoo splats – like the ones pictured above on the far right), you must follow the Command instructions at the bottom of the card before collecting to your hand. And if it’s a Ghoul you will begin battle!
Battling Ghouls is mechanically simple, but the overall battle may not be. When you face a Ghoul its card will tell you what the strength of the monster is (the white number). It could have four, five, or six hit points (HPs). To vanquish the Ghoul you will need to play cards whose Ghoo value (splats) is equal to or greater than the Ghoul’s HP amount. From this point the other hunters can intervene in the battle by playing cards whose battle Ghoo tips the scales toward the Ghoul thus making it more difficult to defeat (a la the ganging up mechanic in Munchkin). As only one hunter may affect the battle in this way, it is the player’s cards whose strength is greater that wins the challenge. Now the original combatant must spend more Ghoo cards to overcome the super-buffed Ghoul. Should the hunter prevail they will collect the Ghoul card and display it in front of them to show the table how many VPs they have earned. If the hunter is unsuccessful in the battle, they suffer wounds in the amount of VPs that would have been awarded with a successful battle (the green dots at the bottom of the card). Wounds are reflected by cards in hand, so if a hunter suffers two wounds, their hand limit is now five instead of the original seven. Play continues in this fashion until a hunter has accumulated 10 VPs and earned victory!
Components. Per my disclaimer, the game that was sent to us is a prototype version of the completed game, so components may (and probably will) change or be improved as a result of further development, and/or a successful Kickstarter campaign. That said, I can comment only on the components that were provided to us. The game is a deck of cards in a deck box. The cards themselves are of fine quality. The art upon them is okay. Nothing too stellar, but it gets the job done. I think the art is one thing that can be improved with development. Don’t get me wrong, the art is not at all bad. Perhaps it’s the card layout or graphic design. Something with a bit more punch would be appreciated.
Our thoughts on this one are that it needs some sprucing up a bit. Yes, it is in prototype format currently, and we know that. The card design needs to be updated a bit, but the game itself was also lacking a bit. One of the major concerns we had when playing through it was the card grid of the floor. We did not use any sort of player marker, token, meeple, or anything to mark our locations, and I really think that may have helped. We just had a hard time visualizing where our hunter was in relation to the face-down cards and how many turns it would take us to travel to them. There were several times where we just guessed as to who was actually closer and they were able to encounter the card. I am unsure how to fix that without supplying a grid or some sort of tracker. We should have maybe just played with meeples or dice for position markers. Oh heck I just thought of this: we could have also placed out dice or whatever on an x and y axis to denote where floor cards should be. Ugh. Battles were run somewhat smoothly, even though there were times where I was down to one card because I had suffered so many wounds and I could not get a First-Aid Kit to save my life (literally). The battle challenges did not work with us and we were trying to find a good way to make them happen, but our minds must not have been at their peak. We weren’t quite sure if, like in Munchkin, you could just add one card to your challenge total, or if you had to commit the entire bunch of cards you wish to play. It is not clear in the rules, so we went with our guts.
Overall, this could be a good dungeon crawler type card game. The theme is good, but for us it didn’t quite click…yet. If it sounds like something you would like to have in your collection, check Kickstarter for the campaign (if Ghoulash Games decides to crowd-fund this), contact the publisher directly, or (depending on date you read this) purchase from your FLGS. Oh, and keep the Ghoo Gone away – this time Ghoo is good for your health!
Charlie Cobra Reviews (1840 KP) rated Zack Snyder's Justice League (2021) in Movies
Mar 26, 2021 (Updated Mar 26, 2021)
The movie as a whole is better than the original. (2 more)
The darker tone, R rating and additional scenes of violence and bloodshed.
The additional scenes for Cyborg's and Flash's story arc were welcome and did their characters justice.
4 hour length was way too long. (2 more)
The aspect ratio being in 4:3 instead of widescreen.
I didn't like certain things about the addition of Darkseid.
This Version Far Surpasses The Original Released
This movie was way better than the one that was released in theaters. I have to say it is a super long movie but honestly the time just flew by while I was watching it. I also broke it up into 2x two hour halves but another way would be to break it into 6 parts like it has been segmented into in the movie already with 5 chapters/parts and an epilogue. I think it helped that I didn't watch the original one right before I saw this one too. I didn't because I didn't want to be too "Justice Leagued" out and because I knew that it was going to be a 4 hour movie already. There were definitely some parts that felt like they needed to be included in the original for the story to make more sense and be more cohesive story-wise but there were more than a couple that were unnecessary and could have still been left on the cutting floor in my opinion. Now people that are expecting this to be a whole new movie will probably feel disappointed and that this movie is very much the same but fans of DC or the DCEU will more than likely enjoy this film over the original. I really like the way that they included more story and scenes for characters like Cyborg and Flash. I feel that they definitely helped in fleshing out their characters who got the short end of the stick the first time around and since their characters didn't have their own stand alone movies. I also feel they fixed the way Wonder Woman was portrayed and the tension between her and Batman in the movie. I know I could bring up more points here in this part of the review and although the movie was released in 2017 and most people have seen it already, I don't want to spoil it for those who might not have seen it and their first time is going to be this version. So with that being said I'll save the rest for the spoiler review section. And now for my score/rating, I'd have to say that this movie still had a lot of issues like unnecessary scenes and a long run time and some of them stick out like a sore thumb but I really liked it and say that this was a great movie, I'm probably a little bias because I generally enjoy comic book movies and like DC as well but I give it a 8/10. And this movie gets my "Must See Seal of Approval" but only if you are a fan of DC, the DC movies or film in general and have what it takes to sit through a 4 hour movie. Also I think it's worth getting a subscription to HBOMax, if only for 1 month at the price of $15 a month because if you sign up now you'll also be able to enjoy all the other content; plus you'll be able to see Godzilla vs Kong when it's released on March 31st and Mortal Kombat on April 16th.
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Spoiler Section Review:
So I really enjoyed this movie and thought it was great. At 4 hours it was a monster of a film to get through but I'm definitely glad I watched it because it was way better than the first one that came out in theaters. One of the biggest reasons I think I liked it too was that it was rated R instead of PG-13 which is why we hear Batman and Cyborg drop F-bombs in the movie and why there is significantly more violence and bloodshed shown. The beginning was also different and had a different feel to it right away because in the original it had the memorial for Superman and in this one it doesn't. One thing that I didn't care for and thought was really annoying was how the movie wasn't widescreen but the 4:3 ratio but luckily I have a setting on my tv to change it to widescreen and I think that helped a lot. I know the composer was also changed from the original which I think was better but hard to say but the music definitely fit better. A big change was how the movie felt like it had less humor and really felt darker in tone. I think that at 4 hours long though they really added back or too many additional scenes that didn't need to be there and were completely unnecessary. The part after Bruce Wayne tries to recruit Aquaman and the Swedish or Norwegian girls sing that song was pretty unnecessary and could have been taken out as well as when Wonder Woman goes to the fire arrow place of the Amazons and walks down the stairs to look at the ancient murals. I liked how Bruce Wayne/Batman had more scenes with Alfred Pennyworth. The greatest addition to this movie in my opinion were the additional scenes for Cyborg's story arc and for Flash. These really helped flesh out their characters and do them justice especially for them not having had their own individual movies before this movie of forming the Justice League. I like how Flash saved Iris in that one scene in front of the pet shop. The flashbacks for Cyborg were really cool too and how they showed more of his Mom that we never got to see humanized him a lot more. One of my favorite things that they changed was black suit Superman, that was awesome that they added that, straight out of the comics. I liked how they showed more action scenes of Wonder Woman especially the extended version of her fighting off the terrorists in the museum or wherever it was they went to blow up the kids. I also liked how they changed the scenes of Batman and her and instead made it more about the team and them together. Another thing I really liked was how they showed Willem Dafoe's character Vulko and how he talked to Aquaman. That was one thing that really bothered me about the original was how Mera and Aquaman acted like they knew each other already but in Aquaman they barely met for the first time so it just really threw me off. That and how did he know to go to Atlantis right when Steppenwolf was about to attack. It also bothered me how the Amazons had such an epic battle against Steppenwolf to defend him taking the mother box and the Atlanteans didn't even put up a fight. With this correction they added the dialogue that Aquaman's brother Orm (Ocean Master) was already starting to make moves to take over the other kingdoms that he needed all his soldiers and wouldn't spare any to protect the mother box. I had mixed feelings about Steppenwolf's redesign but I think ultimately it was a good thing and you were able to see his motivations better and think he came out more of a badass and better bad guy. It was cool to see him communicate using the mother boxes and talk to Darkseid's other henchmen Desaad. One thing I really didn't like was how they did Darkseid dirty and showed him lose in the past instead of how it was Steppenwolf who lost in the original to the combined armies of Amazons, Greek Gods, humans and a Green Lantern. They didn't even show him use his Omega beams against them but he did use it against the Atlanteans in a vision of the future that Cyborg sees and it was awesome. I felt they watered down Darkseid from how hardcore he's supposed to be in the comics and cartoons, etc... I liked how in the end they showed how he had Desaad with him and Granny Goodness with him on the other side of the boom tube. I really didn't like how they had this whole thing about Darkseid not remembering which planet the mother boxes were on or where he had seen the "anti-life equation". It doesn't make sense to me that he would forget the planet where he got his ass kicked and almost died or at least was defeated. I heard a theory that maybe he didn't forget he just didn't want his followers to know he suffered a defeat and didn't let them know or killed everyone who knew but then it also didn't make sense that Steppenwolf remembered. It also never explained in this version how or why Steppenwolf fell out of favor with Darkseid and why he was trying so desperately to please him and his whole debt of having to conquer 100,000 worlds. I think this movie could have been cut down to 3 hours and been just as good, and think that 4 hours was a bit too much and that's considering 10% is in slow motion scenes (that's 24 minutes give or take). To me it looks like the success of this version of the movie could possibly generate enough buzz to get a sequel but Zack Snyder has already stated that he more than likely wouldn't come back to make it. As I said above I really dug this version and probably am a little biased and should maybe give it a point lower than what I scored/rated it but I give it a 8/10 and it get's my "Must See Seal of Approval".
https://youtu.be/EvpnLXHBYZU
-------------------------------------------------------
Spoiler Section Review:
So I really enjoyed this movie and thought it was great. At 4 hours it was a monster of a film to get through but I'm definitely glad I watched it because it was way better than the first one that came out in theaters. One of the biggest reasons I think I liked it too was that it was rated R instead of PG-13 which is why we hear Batman and Cyborg drop F-bombs in the movie and why there is significantly more violence and bloodshed shown. The beginning was also different and had a different feel to it right away because in the original it had the memorial for Superman and in this one it doesn't. One thing that I didn't care for and thought was really annoying was how the movie wasn't widescreen but the 4:3 ratio but luckily I have a setting on my tv to change it to widescreen and I think that helped a lot. I know the composer was also changed from the original which I think was better but hard to say but the music definitely fit better. A big change was how the movie felt like it had less humor and really felt darker in tone. I think that at 4 hours long though they really added back or too many additional scenes that didn't need to be there and were completely unnecessary. The part after Bruce Wayne tries to recruit Aquaman and the Swedish or Norwegian girls sing that song was pretty unnecessary and could have been taken out as well as when Wonder Woman goes to the fire arrow place of the Amazons and walks down the stairs to look at the ancient murals. I liked how Bruce Wayne/Batman had more scenes with Alfred Pennyworth. The greatest addition to this movie in my opinion were the additional scenes for Cyborg's story arc and for Flash. These really helped flesh out their characters and do them justice especially for them not having had their own individual movies before this movie of forming the Justice League. I like how Flash saved Iris in that one scene in front of the pet shop. The flashbacks for Cyborg were really cool too and how they showed more of his Mom that we never got to see humanized him a lot more. One of my favorite things that they changed was black suit Superman, that was awesome that they added that, straight out of the comics. I liked how they showed more action scenes of Wonder Woman especially the extended version of her fighting off the terrorists in the museum or wherever it was they went to blow up the kids. I also liked how they changed the scenes of Batman and her and instead made it more about the team and them together. Another thing I really liked was how they showed Willem Dafoe's character Vulko and how he talked to Aquaman. That was one thing that really bothered me about the original was how Mera and Aquaman acted like they knew each other already but in Aquaman they barely met for the first time so it just really threw me off. That and how did he know to go to Atlantis right when Steppenwolf was about to attack. It also bothered me how the Amazons had such an epic battle against Steppenwolf to defend him taking the mother box and the Atlanteans didn't even put up a fight. With this correction they added the dialogue that Aquaman's brother Orm (Ocean Master) was already starting to make moves to take over the other kingdoms that he needed all his soldiers and wouldn't spare any to protect the mother box. I had mixed feelings about Steppenwolf's redesign but I think ultimately it was a good thing and you were able to see his motivations better and think he came out more of a badass and better bad guy. It was cool to see him communicate using the mother boxes and talk to Darkseid's other henchmen Desaad. One thing I really didn't like was how they did Darkseid dirty and showed him lose in the past instead of how it was Steppenwolf who lost in the original to the combined armies of Amazons, Greek Gods, humans and a Green Lantern. They didn't even show him use his Omega beams against them but he did use it against the Atlanteans in a vision of the future that Cyborg sees and it was awesome. I felt they watered down Darkseid from how hardcore he's supposed to be in the comics and cartoons, etc... I liked how in the end they showed how he had Desaad with him and Granny Goodness with him on the other side of the boom tube. I really didn't like how they had this whole thing about Darkseid not remembering which planet the mother boxes were on or where he had seen the "anti-life equation". It doesn't make sense to me that he would forget the planet where he got his ass kicked and almost died or at least was defeated. I heard a theory that maybe he didn't forget he just didn't want his followers to know he suffered a defeat and didn't let them know or killed everyone who knew but then it also didn't make sense that Steppenwolf remembered. It also never explained in this version how or why Steppenwolf fell out of favor with Darkseid and why he was trying so desperately to please him and his whole debt of having to conquer 100,000 worlds. I think this movie could have been cut down to 3 hours and been just as good, and think that 4 hours was a bit too much and that's considering 10% is in slow motion scenes (that's 24 minutes give or take). To me it looks like the success of this version of the movie could possibly generate enough buzz to get a sequel but Zack Snyder has already stated that he more than likely wouldn't come back to make it. As I said above I really dug this version and probably am a little biased and should maybe give it a point lower than what I scored/rated it but I give it a 8/10 and it get's my "Must See Seal of Approval".
https://youtu.be/EvpnLXHBYZU
5 Minute Movie Guy (379 KP) rated Mad Max: Fury Road (2015) in Movies
Jun 30, 2019 (Updated Sep 16, 2019)
Mad Max: Fury Road is an intense, action-packed, visually stunning, and wildly entertaining film. It's only when the action slows down that the film starts to show signs of decay.
30 years and a fresh face later, the Mad Max series makes an extravagant and exhilarating return to theaters with Mad Max: Fury Road. Mel Gibson’s iconic wasteland warrior hero Max Rockatansky has been recast with the talented Tom Hardy, who gives us a more visceral and damaged portrayal of the character. Having endured years in the Hellish wasteland, Max now acts on his sole instinct of surviving. He’s ravaged by the horrors of his past and has lost all semblance of hope in this bleak, post-apocalyptic future where water is scarce and mayhem is bountiful. Director and series creator George Miller does a masterful job in creating a remarkable and inventive world of chaos and destruction, with action sequences that are practically unparalleled. Mad Max: Fury Road is a movie that keeps its fat, irradiated foot firmly pressed on the gas pedal throughout almost its entire duration, resulting in a movie that’s intense, action-packed, visually stunning, perfectly bizarre, wonderfully inventive, and wildly entertaining. It’s only when the action slows down that the film starts to show signs of decay.
In Fury Road, we first encounter Max alone in the wasteland in what is about to be a very long and very bad day. He’s quickly spotted and pursued by a pack of deathly-pale skinhead warriors known as Warboys. Outnumbered and easily captured, Max is taken to The Citadel, which serves as the home of the film’s central conflict. The monstrously plagued Immortan Joe rules over The Citadel like a cult leader, promising eternal salvation to his army of Warboys who die fighting for him. The city is a place of great disparity, as Joe teases the peasants with water, while he enjoys the excesses of his precious resources. Even worse is that he’s enslaved healthy, young women, known as his Five Wives, for the sake of producing his children.
This predicament doesn’t sit well with the battle-hardened woman warrior Imperator Furiosa (Charlize Theron) who serves under Immortan Joe’s command. Tired of Joe’s tyrannous ways, Imperator Furiosa betrays her leader during a routine gas run by venturing her armored war-rig offroad with the Five Wives secretly in tow. When news spreads that Furiosa is trying to escape and has taken the Wives with her, Joe and his army of Warboys feverishly follow in pursuit. This begins an epic, elaborate, and expertly crafted chase sequence that is absolutely outrageous and unmistakably brilliant.
Meanwhile, the enslaved Max ends up being inopportunely thrust into the action at full throttle, chained to the front of a car like a hood ornament. While Max’s name may be in the title, make no mistake about it, this is Furiosa’s story. Max is primarily just along for the ride, and doing whatever he can to survive. That’s not to say that Max is simply an unfortunate onlooker to the events of the film, but he is given little in the way of dialogue and backstory, and is chained up for a substantial portion of Fury Road. Though it should be said that the movie as a whole is rather thin on story and dialogue and it merely glosses over the plot to retain its focus on the action, which is where the film really sets itself apart.
The majority of the Fury Road serves as this long, impressive chase sequence that miraculously continues to escalate as the film goes on, despite appearing to throw the whole kitchen sink at you right at the beginning. It’s explosive, crazy, and jaw-droppingly awesome from the get-go, and yet believe me, it only gets bigger and better. Just wait until later when they start adding monster trucks, mini-guns, pole-vaulters, dirt bike-riding grannies, and a guitar flamethrower. It will leave you giddy with excitement. It’s an amazing, heavy-metal, end-of-the-world spectacle that you just got to see to believe. What makes it all even more incredible is that so much of the action is achieved by practical effects, with real stunts and car crashes and explosions.
Unfortunately, in the rare moments when Fury Road lets its foot off the gas and slows down the action, it sometimes sputters. Take for instance, the film’s climactic turning point when Furiosa’s dreams are spoiled. She dramatically falls to her knees in the sand, reeling in despair, and screams out into the void. This pivotal moment should be the most powerful moment of the film, but for me it fell completely flat. The problem here is that I never felt a strong attachment to the characters. While I respect Furiosa and Max for their strength in this struggle, I also feel like I don’t know much of anything about them, except that they’re adept at surviving and have battled through Hell to get to this point. So while this brief interlude drags a bit, Max thankfully turns things back around and leads us right back into the heart of the action, where Fury Road is at its best.
Charlize Theron gives a commanding performance as Furiosa, easily establishing herself among the ranks of the great female action stars. She makes for an excellent partner to Tom Hardy’s Max (though reportedly not so much on set). Hardy, on the other hand, puts in a solid performance, but I do take some issue with it. Truthfully, he just didn’t quite feel like Mad Max. His take on the character is too rugged. He’s missing the charm and likability that Mel Gibson’s Max had. His character may be cool, but he’s difficult to relate to, and feels remarkably reduced as he grunts throughout half of the movie without uttering a word. I can’t help but feel that perhaps Hardy took Max’s madness and survival instincts a little too far. The film also stars Nicholas Hoult as Nux, the Warboy that led Max into this whole mess, who expresses a much more appealing level of craziness. Whereas Nux is an energetic, lunatic cult follower, Max seems like he’s just a few bolts short of becoming a mentally-deranged hobo, which might not bode so well for future films. Lastly, there’s Immortan Joe, played by Hugh Keays-Byrne, who has an exceptional screen presence by being imposing, frightening, and so over-the-top that he’s kind of funny.
Visually and artistically, Mad Max: Fury Road is a triumphant success. It’s more gorgeous than you would ever think possible for a decrepit, wasteland warzone. Considerable skill and attention to detail are demonstrated to bring beauty out of this decaying environment. It features first-rate cinematography and unbelievable creativity. You’ll wonder how anyone ever thought of this stuff, but you’ll be grateful they did. The characters all look outstanding, unique, and memorable. I particularly loved Furiosa’s appearance with her prosthetic arm and grease-smeared warpaint. More impressive still is the menacing Immortan Joe with his mask and elaborate body armor. Fury Road similarly has beautiful special effects which greatly enhance the atmosphere as well as the film’s many remarkable stunts. In all, this is sure to be one of the best looking films of the year.
Mad Max: Fury Road may not be a perfect film, but it makes for an explosive and unforgettable return to the series. It’s truly a creative tour-de-force, with ingenious action, stellar design, and stunning visuals. It features brilliantly choreographed fights and chases, and some of the coolest movie stunts I’ve ever seen. The movie doesn’t always get the emotional punch it’s aiming for, and it has its share of awkward moments, but it sure makes a lasting impression with its intense, adrenaline-pumping theatrics. It might be a little too strange and twisted for some (though it’s relatively tame for being rated R), however, those who can handle the wasteland are sure to find a film that is deserving of respect and admiration. While I have my gripes with Hardy’s portrayal of Max, I know that I, for one, still can’t wait to see what the future holds for everybody’s favorite road warrior.
(The review was originally posted at 5mmg.com on 5.19.15.)
In Fury Road, we first encounter Max alone in the wasteland in what is about to be a very long and very bad day. He’s quickly spotted and pursued by a pack of deathly-pale skinhead warriors known as Warboys. Outnumbered and easily captured, Max is taken to The Citadel, which serves as the home of the film’s central conflict. The monstrously plagued Immortan Joe rules over The Citadel like a cult leader, promising eternal salvation to his army of Warboys who die fighting for him. The city is a place of great disparity, as Joe teases the peasants with water, while he enjoys the excesses of his precious resources. Even worse is that he’s enslaved healthy, young women, known as his Five Wives, for the sake of producing his children.
This predicament doesn’t sit well with the battle-hardened woman warrior Imperator Furiosa (Charlize Theron) who serves under Immortan Joe’s command. Tired of Joe’s tyrannous ways, Imperator Furiosa betrays her leader during a routine gas run by venturing her armored war-rig offroad with the Five Wives secretly in tow. When news spreads that Furiosa is trying to escape and has taken the Wives with her, Joe and his army of Warboys feverishly follow in pursuit. This begins an epic, elaborate, and expertly crafted chase sequence that is absolutely outrageous and unmistakably brilliant.
Meanwhile, the enslaved Max ends up being inopportunely thrust into the action at full throttle, chained to the front of a car like a hood ornament. While Max’s name may be in the title, make no mistake about it, this is Furiosa’s story. Max is primarily just along for the ride, and doing whatever he can to survive. That’s not to say that Max is simply an unfortunate onlooker to the events of the film, but he is given little in the way of dialogue and backstory, and is chained up for a substantial portion of Fury Road. Though it should be said that the movie as a whole is rather thin on story and dialogue and it merely glosses over the plot to retain its focus on the action, which is where the film really sets itself apart.
The majority of the Fury Road serves as this long, impressive chase sequence that miraculously continues to escalate as the film goes on, despite appearing to throw the whole kitchen sink at you right at the beginning. It’s explosive, crazy, and jaw-droppingly awesome from the get-go, and yet believe me, it only gets bigger and better. Just wait until later when they start adding monster trucks, mini-guns, pole-vaulters, dirt bike-riding grannies, and a guitar flamethrower. It will leave you giddy with excitement. It’s an amazing, heavy-metal, end-of-the-world spectacle that you just got to see to believe. What makes it all even more incredible is that so much of the action is achieved by practical effects, with real stunts and car crashes and explosions.
Unfortunately, in the rare moments when Fury Road lets its foot off the gas and slows down the action, it sometimes sputters. Take for instance, the film’s climactic turning point when Furiosa’s dreams are spoiled. She dramatically falls to her knees in the sand, reeling in despair, and screams out into the void. This pivotal moment should be the most powerful moment of the film, but for me it fell completely flat. The problem here is that I never felt a strong attachment to the characters. While I respect Furiosa and Max for their strength in this struggle, I also feel like I don’t know much of anything about them, except that they’re adept at surviving and have battled through Hell to get to this point. So while this brief interlude drags a bit, Max thankfully turns things back around and leads us right back into the heart of the action, where Fury Road is at its best.
Charlize Theron gives a commanding performance as Furiosa, easily establishing herself among the ranks of the great female action stars. She makes for an excellent partner to Tom Hardy’s Max (though reportedly not so much on set). Hardy, on the other hand, puts in a solid performance, but I do take some issue with it. Truthfully, he just didn’t quite feel like Mad Max. His take on the character is too rugged. He’s missing the charm and likability that Mel Gibson’s Max had. His character may be cool, but he’s difficult to relate to, and feels remarkably reduced as he grunts throughout half of the movie without uttering a word. I can’t help but feel that perhaps Hardy took Max’s madness and survival instincts a little too far. The film also stars Nicholas Hoult as Nux, the Warboy that led Max into this whole mess, who expresses a much more appealing level of craziness. Whereas Nux is an energetic, lunatic cult follower, Max seems like he’s just a few bolts short of becoming a mentally-deranged hobo, which might not bode so well for future films. Lastly, there’s Immortan Joe, played by Hugh Keays-Byrne, who has an exceptional screen presence by being imposing, frightening, and so over-the-top that he’s kind of funny.
Visually and artistically, Mad Max: Fury Road is a triumphant success. It’s more gorgeous than you would ever think possible for a decrepit, wasteland warzone. Considerable skill and attention to detail are demonstrated to bring beauty out of this decaying environment. It features first-rate cinematography and unbelievable creativity. You’ll wonder how anyone ever thought of this stuff, but you’ll be grateful they did. The characters all look outstanding, unique, and memorable. I particularly loved Furiosa’s appearance with her prosthetic arm and grease-smeared warpaint. More impressive still is the menacing Immortan Joe with his mask and elaborate body armor. Fury Road similarly has beautiful special effects which greatly enhance the atmosphere as well as the film’s many remarkable stunts. In all, this is sure to be one of the best looking films of the year.
Mad Max: Fury Road may not be a perfect film, but it makes for an explosive and unforgettable return to the series. It’s truly a creative tour-de-force, with ingenious action, stellar design, and stunning visuals. It features brilliantly choreographed fights and chases, and some of the coolest movie stunts I’ve ever seen. The movie doesn’t always get the emotional punch it’s aiming for, and it has its share of awkward moments, but it sure makes a lasting impression with its intense, adrenaline-pumping theatrics. It might be a little too strange and twisted for some (though it’s relatively tame for being rated R), however, those who can handle the wasteland are sure to find a film that is deserving of respect and admiration. While I have my gripes with Hardy’s portrayal of Max, I know that I, for one, still can’t wait to see what the future holds for everybody’s favorite road warrior.
(The review was originally posted at 5mmg.com on 5.19.15.)