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Purple Phoenix Games (2266 KP) rated Quests & Cannons in Tabletop Games
May 17, 2021
Fantasy Yarharrr! The isles have been borne and offer wondrous resources, but only for one o’ ye. Gather yer factions and fight for control and survival, or suffer a fate worse than death… which, in this case, is extinction! Okay, this is way less dramatic, but the stakes are high when bunnies, eagles, and piggies battle on the high seas for control of the islands and assurance of their race’s survival.
Quests & Cannons is a giant melting pot of mechanics rolled up into a cute little package with an interesting modular board with multiple setup options. In it, players take control of one of the aforementioned animal races and board their ships to claim islands and exploit their resources. The first player to amass 15 or 20 prosperity (VP) by the end of the game will reign victorious!
DISCLAIMER: We were provided a prototype copy of this game for the purposes of this review. These are preview copy components, and I do not know for sure if the final components will be any different from these shown. Also, it is not my intention to detail every rule in the game, as there are just too many. You are invited to download the rulebook, back the game through the Kickstarter campaign, or through any retailers stocking it after fulfillment. -T
There are so many steps to setup, and about a thousand bits and pieces, so I will save both your eyes and my fingers explaining. However, once setup, it should look somewhat similar to the photo below. Each player receives their own upgradeable ship board to track resources, action points, and other game-necessary components, along with a specific character and matching boat token.
On a turn, players will have three action points they may spend in any order on the following actions: Movement, Gather, Attack. Movement is one nautical hex in any direction per action point used, unless a player uses one of their sails. Sails add one hex to a movement and is spent for the rest of the round. The thing to keep in mind with movement is that different tiles affect movement in different ways, so luckily reference cards are included in the game. Once a ship discovers a new island, the player receives one coin and a Quest card in addition to flipping over the question mark Island Feature Tokens. These tokens show specific resources, which Quest cards require to be completed, at specific locations on the board.
Players can spend an action point to Gather resources from an island. Players are able to fill up their ships’ holds with as much of the resource as they wish, and it can be replaced with other resources on future turns.
Map Clues are cards that can be worked on during play, similar to Quest cards, and usually require an action point to be spent. These are special circumstances, and the action points are not available to be spent on every turn. Similar special circumstances include visits to Outposts, Trading Posts, and Starting Spaces. These spaces allow players to buy and sell items, and upgrade and repair ships.
The last option for action point spending is by attacking. A player may Attack another player when they share the same space on the board. The attacking player spends an action point to fire their cannons equipped on their ship. The ammo is tracked and represented by ammo dice. Once rolled, the attacker scores hull damage for every four pips rolled. If the ship takes as many or more hull damage than they have HP hearts, their ship sinks. Fortunately, this does not eliminate the player, but they lose many resources and coins, and will need to respawn at their starting location.
The player who earns 15 or 20 prosperity (depending on game mode) from attacking players, completing Quest and Map Clue cards, and possibly some other secret methods, will win Quests & Cannons and leads their race to eternal glory!
Components. Again, this is a prototype copy of the game, but I’ll tell you what, if the finished project comes with even slightly better components, it will be a monumental accomplishment. This is one of the highest-quality home-made prototypes I have ever received. I know most art and many items are final, but everything is on the table for upgrades, with a successful Kickstarter campaign. The colors are great, the art is fantastical and amazing, and it looks phenomenal on the table. I really enjoy the different characters with their unique special powers, and the double-layer ship player mats. Everything has its place and is organized beautifully. I am very excited to see the final product that Short Hop Games achieves!
This kind of game is really right up my alley: head-to-head combat (without player elimination), exploration, and pick-up-and-deliver. The only thing this is missing to be the perfect Travis game is a deck building element, but that certainly wouldn’t fit here. Quests & Cannons is chocked full of mechanics that, I believe, work really well together to provide a great game experience without adding a ton of complexity. The hexploration is strong, and the pick-up-and-deliver mechanic is tasty. All the mechanics, components, and artwork synergize so well that I am surprised this is a title from first-time designers and publisher.
What I like most is that though the rules are plentiful, once you get them down you have a wonderfully fun versatile game that can be played with many different group permutations and modes. The variety in setup options are endless, and the rulebook offers nine or ten different setups. The game also comes with lots of extra map bits, so any player could dream up several unique setup options at any time. The Quests are great, and the Loot cards (though I didn’t mention them in the overview) offer lots of ways to improve players’ strategies. With the abundance of upgrades available and unique special powers, this one is a big winner for me.
If you are in the market for something a little different, with a great theme and interesting combination of mechanics, then Quests & Cannons is certainly worth a look. I am very excited to follow the progress and the campaign for this one. I think backers will be receiving an incredible game with excellent components and tons of replayability. Now to challenge my wife so she can mop the poop deck with me.
Quests & Cannons is a giant melting pot of mechanics rolled up into a cute little package with an interesting modular board with multiple setup options. In it, players take control of one of the aforementioned animal races and board their ships to claim islands and exploit their resources. The first player to amass 15 or 20 prosperity (VP) by the end of the game will reign victorious!
DISCLAIMER: We were provided a prototype copy of this game for the purposes of this review. These are preview copy components, and I do not know for sure if the final components will be any different from these shown. Also, it is not my intention to detail every rule in the game, as there are just too many. You are invited to download the rulebook, back the game through the Kickstarter campaign, or through any retailers stocking it after fulfillment. -T
There are so many steps to setup, and about a thousand bits and pieces, so I will save both your eyes and my fingers explaining. However, once setup, it should look somewhat similar to the photo below. Each player receives their own upgradeable ship board to track resources, action points, and other game-necessary components, along with a specific character and matching boat token.
On a turn, players will have three action points they may spend in any order on the following actions: Movement, Gather, Attack. Movement is one nautical hex in any direction per action point used, unless a player uses one of their sails. Sails add one hex to a movement and is spent for the rest of the round. The thing to keep in mind with movement is that different tiles affect movement in different ways, so luckily reference cards are included in the game. Once a ship discovers a new island, the player receives one coin and a Quest card in addition to flipping over the question mark Island Feature Tokens. These tokens show specific resources, which Quest cards require to be completed, at specific locations on the board.
Players can spend an action point to Gather resources from an island. Players are able to fill up their ships’ holds with as much of the resource as they wish, and it can be replaced with other resources on future turns.
Map Clues are cards that can be worked on during play, similar to Quest cards, and usually require an action point to be spent. These are special circumstances, and the action points are not available to be spent on every turn. Similar special circumstances include visits to Outposts, Trading Posts, and Starting Spaces. These spaces allow players to buy and sell items, and upgrade and repair ships.
The last option for action point spending is by attacking. A player may Attack another player when they share the same space on the board. The attacking player spends an action point to fire their cannons equipped on their ship. The ammo is tracked and represented by ammo dice. Once rolled, the attacker scores hull damage for every four pips rolled. If the ship takes as many or more hull damage than they have HP hearts, their ship sinks. Fortunately, this does not eliminate the player, but they lose many resources and coins, and will need to respawn at their starting location.
The player who earns 15 or 20 prosperity (depending on game mode) from attacking players, completing Quest and Map Clue cards, and possibly some other secret methods, will win Quests & Cannons and leads their race to eternal glory!
Components. Again, this is a prototype copy of the game, but I’ll tell you what, if the finished project comes with even slightly better components, it will be a monumental accomplishment. This is one of the highest-quality home-made prototypes I have ever received. I know most art and many items are final, but everything is on the table for upgrades, with a successful Kickstarter campaign. The colors are great, the art is fantastical and amazing, and it looks phenomenal on the table. I really enjoy the different characters with their unique special powers, and the double-layer ship player mats. Everything has its place and is organized beautifully. I am very excited to see the final product that Short Hop Games achieves!
This kind of game is really right up my alley: head-to-head combat (without player elimination), exploration, and pick-up-and-deliver. The only thing this is missing to be the perfect Travis game is a deck building element, but that certainly wouldn’t fit here. Quests & Cannons is chocked full of mechanics that, I believe, work really well together to provide a great game experience without adding a ton of complexity. The hexploration is strong, and the pick-up-and-deliver mechanic is tasty. All the mechanics, components, and artwork synergize so well that I am surprised this is a title from first-time designers and publisher.
What I like most is that though the rules are plentiful, once you get them down you have a wonderfully fun versatile game that can be played with many different group permutations and modes. The variety in setup options are endless, and the rulebook offers nine or ten different setups. The game also comes with lots of extra map bits, so any player could dream up several unique setup options at any time. The Quests are great, and the Loot cards (though I didn’t mention them in the overview) offer lots of ways to improve players’ strategies. With the abundance of upgrades available and unique special powers, this one is a big winner for me.
If you are in the market for something a little different, with a great theme and interesting combination of mechanics, then Quests & Cannons is certainly worth a look. I am very excited to follow the progress and the campaign for this one. I think backers will be receiving an incredible game with excellent components and tons of replayability. Now to challenge my wife so she can mop the poop deck with me.
Charlie Cobra Reviews (1840 KP) rated Made In Abyss in TV
Mar 3, 2021 (Updated Mar 27, 2021)
Animation, this anime is beautifully drawn (2 more)
Soundtrack, the musical score adds much to the ambiance of the world
The characters, great character design and character development
I wish it was more than 13 episodes (1 more)
The cute characters design fools you into thinking nothing bad can happen in this show
A Beautifully Frightening Journey That's Emotionally Gripping
(CCR Original Content) Made In Abyss Review [Spoiler Free Review and Spoiler Section below picture] (9/10)
Made In Abyss is a Japanese dark fantasy/adventure/sci-fi anime series adapted by Kinema Citrus from the manga written and illustrated by Akihito Tsukushi. It was directed by Masayuki Kojima and written by Hideyuki Kurata with character designs by Kazuchika Kise and animation by studio Kinema Citrus. Kevin Penkin composed the soundtrack and the anime originally aired from July 7 to September 29, 2017. The series was licensed by Sentai Filmworks in North America.
The Abyss, a huge gaping chasm stretching down into the depths of the earth, filled with mysterious creatures and relics from a time long past raises countless questions. How did it come to be? What lies at the bottom? Countless brave individuals, known as "Delvers", have sought to solve these mysteries, fearlessly descending into its darkest realms. An orphaned young girl, Riko, and a humanoid robot, Reg begin their adventure to descend into the titular "Abyss", that leads deep into the Earth, in hopes of finding her mother.
This show is definitely going to be on my list as one of the best anime of all time. The animation is beautiful and the character designs were definitely misleading or deceptive in how cute and "chibi"-ish they look in comparison to how the story or plot goes. This was definitely a tear jerker in my opinion and such a great show. I personally haven't seen any of the movies that came after it but I hear that two (Made in Abyss: Journey's Dawn & Made In Abyss: Wandering Twilight) are actually just re-caps of the series and the third Made In Abyss: Dawn of The Deep Soul is actually something different. Not sure if it's a prequel or sequel because I didn't want to read any spoilers before watching it. As I was saying before, not to hype it up to much but this was definitely a great anime from the animation to the soundtrack to the concept and plot. I really liked the characters too. Riko is so smart and determined and Reg has the whole "born yesterday" thing going on with amnesia which is a little "cliché" but he still comes out being a pretty cool character too. The anime has a lot of beautiful and unique scenery and landscapes and it really feels like you go with them on the journey which only heightens the ups and downs of the adventure with gets surprisingly dark for how cheery it seems from a lot of the pictures I've seen of it. I would get into more details but I don't want to spoil anything, definitely gave me some Studio Ghibli vibes and I can't recommend it enough for people who like anime like Princess Mononoke and Madoka Magica. I give it a solid 9 which isn't a first for me but I usually don't give anything higher than a 8 and I'm sure there's things that you can find wrong with it but for me it was the whole experience from beginning to end that really sealed it for me.
-------------------------------------------------------
Spoiler Review Section:
(I actually didn't spoil anything because I didn't want to ruin for anyone because I thought this anime was so good.)
This was such a great anime and I had a really great time watching it with my brother who showed it to me. It has beautiful animation and the musical score really adds to the ambience and the awesome world building they did when they made this anime. So the whole thing with this anime is the people in it live in a town called Orth that exists on this island around a giant pit in the ground and when I say giant I mean gigantic. This pit is not only huge in circumference but is also very deep something like 12,000 meters or around 40,000 feet which would make it deeper than the Mariana Trench. In this world there are explorers who go down into the Abyss to explore it's many mysteries and also to bring back ancient relics of a long lost civilization. These relics are worth money and the orphans that are the main characters in this anime do this kind of like a job while they live at the orphanage called Belchero Orphanage in the town of Orth. People that explore into the Abyss are called Cave-Raiders or Delvers and they have a lot to deal with beside the dangerous creatures and the arduous descent, there is also the "curse of the Abyss" which gets worse the deeper you go. It's a very mysterious and potentially deadly side-effect of having ventured into the Abyss and because of it there are very few people who have gone down into the lower depths and returned. The only way I can explain it is that it's similar to deep underwater diving and how if you don't decompress it can damage your lungs and kill you. There's also a class system put in place that classifies the different cave-raiders by experience or capability and it uses different colored whistles to differentiate them. White whistles are of the highest rank and considered legendary delvers who are also given a title. The main character is name Riko, she is a small 12-year old girl whose blonde with glasses and her mother is a legendary White Whistle named "Lyza, the Annihilator". Riko is obsessed with exploring the Abyss and has plans to reach the bottom and see her mother who never returned. The other main character is Reg, who is a robot or cyborg and like I mentioned earlier has amnesia and no memories of anything before being found by Riko. This anime may seem pretty "chibi" and innocent but believe me their journey isn't for the feint of heart and so much happens in such a short amount of time over the 13 episodes. That being said you definitely need to give this anime a chance, it has beautiful animation, a great soundtrack or musical score and a gripping plot that advances the characters through obstacles and dangers the further they go into the Abyss. This anime gets my "Must See Seal of Approval" and I give it a 9. I really can't wait to see what they have in store for the other movie that I still haven't seen yet but you can bet I'll be putting a review for that too.
https://youtu.be/om6HVFxmr_s
Made In Abyss is a Japanese dark fantasy/adventure/sci-fi anime series adapted by Kinema Citrus from the manga written and illustrated by Akihito Tsukushi. It was directed by Masayuki Kojima and written by Hideyuki Kurata with character designs by Kazuchika Kise and animation by studio Kinema Citrus. Kevin Penkin composed the soundtrack and the anime originally aired from July 7 to September 29, 2017. The series was licensed by Sentai Filmworks in North America.
The Abyss, a huge gaping chasm stretching down into the depths of the earth, filled with mysterious creatures and relics from a time long past raises countless questions. How did it come to be? What lies at the bottom? Countless brave individuals, known as "Delvers", have sought to solve these mysteries, fearlessly descending into its darkest realms. An orphaned young girl, Riko, and a humanoid robot, Reg begin their adventure to descend into the titular "Abyss", that leads deep into the Earth, in hopes of finding her mother.
This show is definitely going to be on my list as one of the best anime of all time. The animation is beautiful and the character designs were definitely misleading or deceptive in how cute and "chibi"-ish they look in comparison to how the story or plot goes. This was definitely a tear jerker in my opinion and such a great show. I personally haven't seen any of the movies that came after it but I hear that two (Made in Abyss: Journey's Dawn & Made In Abyss: Wandering Twilight) are actually just re-caps of the series and the third Made In Abyss: Dawn of The Deep Soul is actually something different. Not sure if it's a prequel or sequel because I didn't want to read any spoilers before watching it. As I was saying before, not to hype it up to much but this was definitely a great anime from the animation to the soundtrack to the concept and plot. I really liked the characters too. Riko is so smart and determined and Reg has the whole "born yesterday" thing going on with amnesia which is a little "cliché" but he still comes out being a pretty cool character too. The anime has a lot of beautiful and unique scenery and landscapes and it really feels like you go with them on the journey which only heightens the ups and downs of the adventure with gets surprisingly dark for how cheery it seems from a lot of the pictures I've seen of it. I would get into more details but I don't want to spoil anything, definitely gave me some Studio Ghibli vibes and I can't recommend it enough for people who like anime like Princess Mononoke and Madoka Magica. I give it a solid 9 which isn't a first for me but I usually don't give anything higher than a 8 and I'm sure there's things that you can find wrong with it but for me it was the whole experience from beginning to end that really sealed it for me.
-------------------------------------------------------
Spoiler Review Section:
(I actually didn't spoil anything because I didn't want to ruin for anyone because I thought this anime was so good.)
This was such a great anime and I had a really great time watching it with my brother who showed it to me. It has beautiful animation and the musical score really adds to the ambience and the awesome world building they did when they made this anime. So the whole thing with this anime is the people in it live in a town called Orth that exists on this island around a giant pit in the ground and when I say giant I mean gigantic. This pit is not only huge in circumference but is also very deep something like 12,000 meters or around 40,000 feet which would make it deeper than the Mariana Trench. In this world there are explorers who go down into the Abyss to explore it's many mysteries and also to bring back ancient relics of a long lost civilization. These relics are worth money and the orphans that are the main characters in this anime do this kind of like a job while they live at the orphanage called Belchero Orphanage in the town of Orth. People that explore into the Abyss are called Cave-Raiders or Delvers and they have a lot to deal with beside the dangerous creatures and the arduous descent, there is also the "curse of the Abyss" which gets worse the deeper you go. It's a very mysterious and potentially deadly side-effect of having ventured into the Abyss and because of it there are very few people who have gone down into the lower depths and returned. The only way I can explain it is that it's similar to deep underwater diving and how if you don't decompress it can damage your lungs and kill you. There's also a class system put in place that classifies the different cave-raiders by experience or capability and it uses different colored whistles to differentiate them. White whistles are of the highest rank and considered legendary delvers who are also given a title. The main character is name Riko, she is a small 12-year old girl whose blonde with glasses and her mother is a legendary White Whistle named "Lyza, the Annihilator". Riko is obsessed with exploring the Abyss and has plans to reach the bottom and see her mother who never returned. The other main character is Reg, who is a robot or cyborg and like I mentioned earlier has amnesia and no memories of anything before being found by Riko. This anime may seem pretty "chibi" and innocent but believe me their journey isn't for the feint of heart and so much happens in such a short amount of time over the 13 episodes. That being said you definitely need to give this anime a chance, it has beautiful animation, a great soundtrack or musical score and a gripping plot that advances the characters through obstacles and dangers the further they go into the Abyss. This anime gets my "Must See Seal of Approval" and I give it a 9. I really can't wait to see what they have in store for the other movie that I still haven't seen yet but you can bet I'll be putting a review for that too.
https://youtu.be/om6HVFxmr_s
Writing (3 more)
Characters
Inconsistencies
Not a horror book, as marketed
What if a powerful virus was released in the air? What if you had to be tested for it every time you tried to walk into a building? Does this sound a little familiar? What if I told you this scenario was written about back in 2010?
In her novel Feed, writer Mira Grant gives readers this very scenario of an airborne, blood transferred virus; something that seems very familiar in today's environment and day-to-day living- - - just minus the zombies.
Grant started out as an urban fantasy writer known as Seanan McGuire, with her first full-length novel being Rosemary and Rue. She received the 2010 John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer, as well as many other awards for her work in fiction. There are four books in the Newsflash series (Feed being the first of these).
We meet our main characters, Georgia and Shaun, while they're out in the 'field' filming some zombies for their blog. Shaun is the more careless one, as we witness him poking at zombies with his hockey stick. The two suddenly have to leave when the zombies become a pack. This is where it gets a little strange- - -Georgia explains to the readers that when zombies are in a pack, they become stronger and somehow smarter, but throughout the rest of the book, it's never really explained how this happens.
In this world, blogging and your view count determines your quality of life. Georgia and Shaun have spent years making their blog- - - After the End Times- - - into a popular blog. Every blogger's dream is to be picked to follow the campaign trail of any upcoming politician, and that is exactly what happens to our main characters. Unfortunately, this is when the book turns into a political thriller- - - this happens within the first fifty pages. Zombies end up taking a backseat from here-on-out.
We still get to learn about the virus (Kellis-Amberlee) throughout the book. We're told that any animal that weighs more than 40 pounds is capable of having the virus, and that some people are even born with a dormant-type of the virus inside of them, but this is also never explained in the entire story, at least in book one. Georgia makes it quite clear throughout the novel that she is completely against anyone owning pets that weigh over 40 pounds, but this is due-to her family having lost their younger son to a pet that went viral. This becomes extremely repetitive. Every time that an animal is brought up or seen, Georgia has to retell her stance on owning pets, when once or twice was enough to let the readers know where she stands on the subject.
There are moments of zombie attacks- - - such as after a political rally in a small town where Georgia and her crew are following Senator Ryman on his race to become President, when bodyguards are attacked by a small group of the undead, and Georgia and Shaun become cornered by a few of them- - - these scenes read as if to just keep the zombie trope going, not to actually make the story better. Grant continually repeats herself throughout the book, and because of this, the story didn't have to be as long as it is. Such as with these few zombie attacks, the reader never feels much danger for the characters. And I found that the characters turn out to just not be that likable.
One such character that had potential is Buffy; the backbone of the After the End Times blog. Scenes that were meant to make the reader care for her fell short. Unlike scenes with Georgia and Shaun, including the bond between them, is not felt with Buffy's scenes; she merely seems like a filler character to make certain parts of the story make sense by constantly disappearing and reappearing wherever need be.
Georgia does have an interesting quirk in the book. She harbors the dormant Kellis-Amberlee virus, which has effected her eyes. She can't be in bright lights because they give her blinding headaches, so she wears sunglasses nearly everywhere: " I collapsed onto our bed at the local four-star hotel a little after dawn, my aching eyes already squeezed shut. Shaun was a bit steadier on his feet and he stayed upright long enough to make sure the room's blackout curtains were drawn. "
The technical side of the story - - - the computer world and the electronic usage- - - in Feed is done pretty well. It's like the movie Nightcrawler meets 28 Days Later, but with a lot less zombies. We get to see the seedy underbelly of journalism- - - where bloggers are willing to do anything to get their view count high. Readers also get to witness how life is like living in a world held hostage by a virus - - -something that is very relatable today.
Georgia constantly reminds readers that she doesn't care about other people, and that Shaun is the only person she cares for- - - and, of course, the view count. She continually blames her lack of empathy on their adoptive parents, stating that they only took them in for the their own blog view counts. Oddly after such information, Shaun doesn't seem to be the immature one in the duo.
I haven't read the other three books, one which is a republishing of Feed, but from a different point-of-view. This story was disguised as a horror novel, but just ended up being a political thriller with some zombies thrown in for a much wider reading audience. The book skims over what life would be like after a devastating virus takes over, but focuses on what politics would be like. I can't recommend Feed as a horror novel; the tagline is also misleading: " 'The good news: we survived. The bad news: so did they. " Unless Grant was talking about politicians....
I didn't give the story a low rating because it wasn't exactly a horror book, but instead for these reasons: throughout the story, Grant repeats a lot of information that was explained earlier in the book (and only needed to be explained once); she also had inconsistencies throughout, sometimes even in the very next sentence. Adding things that needed to be explained which weren't, and the afterthoughts that broke up the flow of the story, I just couldn't enjoy it. But, if you like political thrillers, then you might like this one. I won't be continuing this series.
In her novel Feed, writer Mira Grant gives readers this very scenario of an airborne, blood transferred virus; something that seems very familiar in today's environment and day-to-day living- - - just minus the zombies.
Grant started out as an urban fantasy writer known as Seanan McGuire, with her first full-length novel being Rosemary and Rue. She received the 2010 John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer, as well as many other awards for her work in fiction. There are four books in the Newsflash series (Feed being the first of these).
We meet our main characters, Georgia and Shaun, while they're out in the 'field' filming some zombies for their blog. Shaun is the more careless one, as we witness him poking at zombies with his hockey stick. The two suddenly have to leave when the zombies become a pack. This is where it gets a little strange- - -Georgia explains to the readers that when zombies are in a pack, they become stronger and somehow smarter, but throughout the rest of the book, it's never really explained how this happens.
In this world, blogging and your view count determines your quality of life. Georgia and Shaun have spent years making their blog- - - After the End Times- - - into a popular blog. Every blogger's dream is to be picked to follow the campaign trail of any upcoming politician, and that is exactly what happens to our main characters. Unfortunately, this is when the book turns into a political thriller- - - this happens within the first fifty pages. Zombies end up taking a backseat from here-on-out.
We still get to learn about the virus (Kellis-Amberlee) throughout the book. We're told that any animal that weighs more than 40 pounds is capable of having the virus, and that some people are even born with a dormant-type of the virus inside of them, but this is also never explained in the entire story, at least in book one. Georgia makes it quite clear throughout the novel that she is completely against anyone owning pets that weigh over 40 pounds, but this is due-to her family having lost their younger son to a pet that went viral. This becomes extremely repetitive. Every time that an animal is brought up or seen, Georgia has to retell her stance on owning pets, when once or twice was enough to let the readers know where she stands on the subject.
There are moments of zombie attacks- - - such as after a political rally in a small town where Georgia and her crew are following Senator Ryman on his race to become President, when bodyguards are attacked by a small group of the undead, and Georgia and Shaun become cornered by a few of them- - - these scenes read as if to just keep the zombie trope going, not to actually make the story better. Grant continually repeats herself throughout the book, and because of this, the story didn't have to be as long as it is. Such as with these few zombie attacks, the reader never feels much danger for the characters. And I found that the characters turn out to just not be that likable.
One such character that had potential is Buffy; the backbone of the After the End Times blog. Scenes that were meant to make the reader care for her fell short. Unlike scenes with Georgia and Shaun, including the bond between them, is not felt with Buffy's scenes; she merely seems like a filler character to make certain parts of the story make sense by constantly disappearing and reappearing wherever need be.
Georgia does have an interesting quirk in the book. She harbors the dormant Kellis-Amberlee virus, which has effected her eyes. She can't be in bright lights because they give her blinding headaches, so she wears sunglasses nearly everywhere: " I collapsed onto our bed at the local four-star hotel a little after dawn, my aching eyes already squeezed shut. Shaun was a bit steadier on his feet and he stayed upright long enough to make sure the room's blackout curtains were drawn. "
The technical side of the story - - - the computer world and the electronic usage- - - in Feed is done pretty well. It's like the movie Nightcrawler meets 28 Days Later, but with a lot less zombies. We get to see the seedy underbelly of journalism- - - where bloggers are willing to do anything to get their view count high. Readers also get to witness how life is like living in a world held hostage by a virus - - -something that is very relatable today.
Georgia constantly reminds readers that she doesn't care about other people, and that Shaun is the only person she cares for- - - and, of course, the view count. She continually blames her lack of empathy on their adoptive parents, stating that they only took them in for the their own blog view counts. Oddly after such information, Shaun doesn't seem to be the immature one in the duo.
I haven't read the other three books, one which is a republishing of Feed, but from a different point-of-view. This story was disguised as a horror novel, but just ended up being a political thriller with some zombies thrown in for a much wider reading audience. The book skims over what life would be like after a devastating virus takes over, but focuses on what politics would be like. I can't recommend Feed as a horror novel; the tagline is also misleading: " 'The good news: we survived. The bad news: so did they. " Unless Grant was talking about politicians....
I didn't give the story a low rating because it wasn't exactly a horror book, but instead for these reasons: throughout the story, Grant repeats a lot of information that was explained earlier in the book (and only needed to be explained once); she also had inconsistencies throughout, sometimes even in the very next sentence. Adding things that needed to be explained which weren't, and the afterthoughts that broke up the flow of the story, I just couldn't enjoy it. But, if you like political thrillers, then you might like this one. I won't be continuing this series.
Daniel Boyd (1066 KP) rated Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (2016) in Movies
Jul 19, 2017
Some of the lighting is well implemented (1 more)
Colin Farrell
Bad CGI (2 more)
The movies 3 leads are extremely annoying
Johnny 'oooh' Depp
Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them - Or JK Rowling and the Never Ending Quest for More Money
Contains spoilers, click to show
First off, full disclosure, I have never been a fan of the Harry Potter franchise. I’ve read a few of the books and seen a few of the movies and it just isn’t my thing. Honestly, I’m not even a fan of fantasy in general, I think Lord Of The Rings is nonsense and Game Of Thrones is vastly overrated and the last Harry Potter movie I saw was the fourth one. However, I was willing to go into this movie with a clean slate and hopefully have it win me over and unfortunately it didn’t. Also this review will contain spoilers if you care about that sort of thing.
This film is a prequel to the other Harry Potter movies, this time set in America rather than Britain and telling the story of the events that led to the great wizarding war between Dumbledore and Grindlewald. The film did have potential, to see what would have essentially been WWII fought with magic could be really cool but unfortunately all we get here is setup and that actual event we want to see will probably take place 4 or 5 movies down the line. The film opens with Eddie Redmayne’s character, Newt Scamander going to New York from London to set free one of the beasts that he keeps inside his Tardis-like brief case. Then he ends up in a bank and meets a ‘Nomaj,’ which is this film’s lazy version of a ‘muggle,’ who we learn is a simple lonely guy that just wants to open his own bakery and that’s another character cliché ticked off the list. We now have the double act of the nerdy, sniveling protagonist and the overweight sympathetic sidekick. Also, for the rest of this review I will be referring to the baker character as fat bloke and this isn’t to be derogatory, but is purely because the script relies on the, ‘fat, jolly, sympathetic, pathetic loner’ stereotype and passes it off as a character arc. If the script isn’t treating the character with any respect, then why should I? So fat bloke it is then.
So the two of them of course have the exact same briefcase and after some cartoony looking CGI animals escape from Redmayne’s case in the bank the suitcases predictably get mixed up and then the fat bloke gets his bakery loan declined and returns home with Redmayne’s suitcase, then more bad CGI animals open the case and attack the fat bloke. Redmayne’s character then gets arrested by some wizarding inspector for letting the, ‘Nomaj,’ (urgh) get away after seeing the animals in the case and is taken to the New York Wizards base, I guess? Then it’s revealed that the wizarding inspector that arrested Redmayne is a bit of a shit inspector and she is trying to redeem herself in the eyes of her superiors, so in front of this high wizard council, she confiscates the case from Redmayne and opens it only to reveal a bunch of cakes inside. Yes, really… Who writes this shit? Rowling is doing to Harry Potter what Lucas did to Star Wars during the prequels at this point.
So Redmayne gets set free and he goes to fat bloke’s house to find him lying on the floor, then some more bad CGI later the inspector turns up and they take him back to her house to meet her sister? Friend? Does it matter? She ends up becoming the love interest for fat bloke. Then for no apparent reason Redmayne and fat bloke enter the case and he shows fat bloke all this crazy shit that apparently humans aren’t supposed to see and then Redmayne does some more sniveling and decides they have to sneak out of the girls’ apartment and recapture the animals that escaped in the bank and from fat bloke’s apartment. They get a couple of the beasts back then they go to central park to find Redmayne’s horny rhino and they dress fat bloke up in a leather rhino costume and use him as rape bait then they ice skate for a bit and capture the rhino. Again, really… I am not making this shit up for satirical reasons.
Then we see a real life prick Ezra Miller playing some sort of weird emo child who is beat by his mother and we see he is working with Colin Farrell to find a big bad dark spirit that is killing people around New York. Colin Farrell is definitely the best thing about the film at this point. After this a bunch of other stupid shit happens, like Ron Perlman and John Voight coming into the movie, showing a ray of potential then being totally wasted. The movie drags in the middle, but eventually after some more fat jokes, bad CGI and sniveling, all of the creatures are captured and Ezra Miller turns into a black death cloud or some such nonsense. Then he is boosting around New York, fucking up shit as he goes and so Redmayne and Farrell follow him down to the subway to stop him. Redmayne seems to be talking him down and then Farrell shows up and essentially tells him to join the dark side. Then there is a CGI wand battle and the council from earlier show up out of nowhere and kill the black cloud of death. Then Colin Farrell gets pissed off and in the best scene in the movie murders half of the council members before he gets arrested by Eddie Redmayne with some magic handcuffs.
Then the worst part in the movie takes place. It is revealed that Colin Farrell is actually Johnny Depp in disguise. I mean he is Grindlewald in disguise but the important part for me is the replacement of Colin Farrell with Johnny Depp. Now I’m not the world’s biggest Colin Farrell fan, he is great in, ‘In Bruges,’ but other than that he is pretty meh, but he was definitely the best thing that this movie had going for it and they fucking swapped him out! With fucking Johnny-‘ooh’-Depp. As if this movie wasn’t shit enough they swapped out the best thing about it for Johnny Depp, the biggest joke in Hollywood. I’m done, fuck this movie, fuck Johnny Depp, fuck JK Rowling, fuck Harry Potter, I’m out.
Okay, let’s briefly talk about the technical side of the film before I score this thing. The whole cast of this movie is phoning it in, so the acting is fine but nothing to write home about, Farrell is the best thing in this movie, but I feel that in the sequels it will just be an ‘ooh,’ off between Depp and Redmayne. The direction is okay as the movie plods along sufficiently, but the writing is wildly inconsistent and the plot as stated above is all over the place. The lighting and cinematography in one scene are fantastic, when Farrell and Miller are conversing in a dark alleyway but other than that they are pretty mundane too. The score is suitably Harry Potter like and the CGI is also to a similar standard of the Harry Potter films. The problem with that is that the CGI was ropey and of a fairly poor standard in the Harry Potter movies 10 years ago and it doesn’t seem like it has improved much since then. This movie isn’t for me, but even from an objective standpoint, based solely from a moviemaking perspective this movie is poor.
This film is a prequel to the other Harry Potter movies, this time set in America rather than Britain and telling the story of the events that led to the great wizarding war between Dumbledore and Grindlewald. The film did have potential, to see what would have essentially been WWII fought with magic could be really cool but unfortunately all we get here is setup and that actual event we want to see will probably take place 4 or 5 movies down the line. The film opens with Eddie Redmayne’s character, Newt Scamander going to New York from London to set free one of the beasts that he keeps inside his Tardis-like brief case. Then he ends up in a bank and meets a ‘Nomaj,’ which is this film’s lazy version of a ‘muggle,’ who we learn is a simple lonely guy that just wants to open his own bakery and that’s another character cliché ticked off the list. We now have the double act of the nerdy, sniveling protagonist and the overweight sympathetic sidekick. Also, for the rest of this review I will be referring to the baker character as fat bloke and this isn’t to be derogatory, but is purely because the script relies on the, ‘fat, jolly, sympathetic, pathetic loner’ stereotype and passes it off as a character arc. If the script isn’t treating the character with any respect, then why should I? So fat bloke it is then.
So the two of them of course have the exact same briefcase and after some cartoony looking CGI animals escape from Redmayne’s case in the bank the suitcases predictably get mixed up and then the fat bloke gets his bakery loan declined and returns home with Redmayne’s suitcase, then more bad CGI animals open the case and attack the fat bloke. Redmayne’s character then gets arrested by some wizarding inspector for letting the, ‘Nomaj,’ (urgh) get away after seeing the animals in the case and is taken to the New York Wizards base, I guess? Then it’s revealed that the wizarding inspector that arrested Redmayne is a bit of a shit inspector and she is trying to redeem herself in the eyes of her superiors, so in front of this high wizard council, she confiscates the case from Redmayne and opens it only to reveal a bunch of cakes inside. Yes, really… Who writes this shit? Rowling is doing to Harry Potter what Lucas did to Star Wars during the prequels at this point.
So Redmayne gets set free and he goes to fat bloke’s house to find him lying on the floor, then some more bad CGI later the inspector turns up and they take him back to her house to meet her sister? Friend? Does it matter? She ends up becoming the love interest for fat bloke. Then for no apparent reason Redmayne and fat bloke enter the case and he shows fat bloke all this crazy shit that apparently humans aren’t supposed to see and then Redmayne does some more sniveling and decides they have to sneak out of the girls’ apartment and recapture the animals that escaped in the bank and from fat bloke’s apartment. They get a couple of the beasts back then they go to central park to find Redmayne’s horny rhino and they dress fat bloke up in a leather rhino costume and use him as rape bait then they ice skate for a bit and capture the rhino. Again, really… I am not making this shit up for satirical reasons.
Then we see a real life prick Ezra Miller playing some sort of weird emo child who is beat by his mother and we see he is working with Colin Farrell to find a big bad dark spirit that is killing people around New York. Colin Farrell is definitely the best thing about the film at this point. After this a bunch of other stupid shit happens, like Ron Perlman and John Voight coming into the movie, showing a ray of potential then being totally wasted. The movie drags in the middle, but eventually after some more fat jokes, bad CGI and sniveling, all of the creatures are captured and Ezra Miller turns into a black death cloud or some such nonsense. Then he is boosting around New York, fucking up shit as he goes and so Redmayne and Farrell follow him down to the subway to stop him. Redmayne seems to be talking him down and then Farrell shows up and essentially tells him to join the dark side. Then there is a CGI wand battle and the council from earlier show up out of nowhere and kill the black cloud of death. Then Colin Farrell gets pissed off and in the best scene in the movie murders half of the council members before he gets arrested by Eddie Redmayne with some magic handcuffs.
Then the worst part in the movie takes place. It is revealed that Colin Farrell is actually Johnny Depp in disguise. I mean he is Grindlewald in disguise but the important part for me is the replacement of Colin Farrell with Johnny Depp. Now I’m not the world’s biggest Colin Farrell fan, he is great in, ‘In Bruges,’ but other than that he is pretty meh, but he was definitely the best thing that this movie had going for it and they fucking swapped him out! With fucking Johnny-‘ooh’-Depp. As if this movie wasn’t shit enough they swapped out the best thing about it for Johnny Depp, the biggest joke in Hollywood. I’m done, fuck this movie, fuck Johnny Depp, fuck JK Rowling, fuck Harry Potter, I’m out.
Okay, let’s briefly talk about the technical side of the film before I score this thing. The whole cast of this movie is phoning it in, so the acting is fine but nothing to write home about, Farrell is the best thing in this movie, but I feel that in the sequels it will just be an ‘ooh,’ off between Depp and Redmayne. The direction is okay as the movie plods along sufficiently, but the writing is wildly inconsistent and the plot as stated above is all over the place. The lighting and cinematography in one scene are fantastic, when Farrell and Miller are conversing in a dark alleyway but other than that they are pretty mundane too. The score is suitably Harry Potter like and the CGI is also to a similar standard of the Harry Potter films. The problem with that is that the CGI was ropey and of a fairly poor standard in the Harry Potter movies 10 years ago and it doesn’t seem like it has improved much since then. This movie isn’t for me, but even from an objective standpoint, based solely from a moviemaking perspective this movie is poor.
graveyardgremlin (7194 KP) rated The Taken (Celestial Blues, #1) in Books
Feb 15, 2019
Even though I'm not especially fond of angels, I decided to try out this new series based on my previous experiences with Vicki Pettersson's work. Sadly, after an intriguing first chapter, any enjoyment I may have expected never came knocking (guess it was too busy knockin' on heaven's door).
Meet one of the two main characters, rockabilly girl Katherine "Kit" Craig. She's an eternally optimistic and peppy reporter whose best friend and co-worker, Nicole, was just murdered while following a lead. Our other MC is a haunted Centurion angel named Griffin Shaw who ushers the newly murdered into the afterlife, otherwise known as the Everlast, while bemoaning the murders of both himself and his wife Evie back in 1960. After making a mistake concerning Nicole, he's been sent back to earth as a human with some angelic senses still intact. Kit and Grif soon meet up and begin investigating the circumstances around Nicole's death, whilst Griffin seeks out any details involving his own.
Problem Number One:
The Cardboard Characters
Character development is supposed to unfold over the course of a book, in this case it actually appeared to deteriorate as the book went on. Kit never developed into anything but one of those annoyingly chipper people you just want to hit with a sledgehammer, while Grif started promisingly enough but then stagnated. They were both very shallow characterizations, and on top of that, I never understood Kit's actions or reactions to just about anything. I never felt her sadness about her best friend's death, whom she rarely gave a passing thought, believed she was smart (by the end, I thought her a dolt), or seem in any way human with nary a rational thought in her head. About mid-way through the book, Grif tells her he's an angel after they kiss, so what does she do? Does she a) run away screaming, b) think he's a few feathers short of a goose and tell him to get hell out of her house and life, or c) have a calm Q&A session followed by giving him a whatfor that consists of "I won't kiss you again" and "you're watching me walk out that door (in her own house) because you can't handle any emotion blah, blah, blah by pretending you're an angel" and then proceed to attend a charity event wherein she acts and converses normally, like nothing happened? If you picked "c" *ding ding ding*, you're a winner! Because as we all know, any sensible guy will pull out the "I'm an angel" trick and expect a woman to believe him. *rolls eyes* Never was it ever crystal clear if Kit thought Grif was either crazy or a liar. It was all a bit hazy, but what can you expect from someone we're never allowed to know? All we discern is she dresses and lives (somewhat) rockabilly, but it's all a veneer to her hollowness inside, which led me to dub her Rockabilly Barbie.
<img src="http://i272.photobucket.com/albums/jj183/piscesrain/reviews/RockabillyBarbie.jpg">;
Because that's all she is and nothing more. The only character that I found a little more well-rounded was the secondary character Bridget Moore and the two Centurions introduced close to the end. Everyone else was either forgettably two-dimensional or they were a caricature, a la Caleb Chambers and Paul Raggio.
Problem Number Two:
The Relationship(s)
I'm expected to believe in a possible relationship between Grif and Rockabilly Barbie, err I mean Kit, but there's not much there to believe in. Like the characters, it was shallow with the same descriptions reiterated over and over again. Basically it's a case of telling instead of showing. I felt no love, maybe some attraction, but that's all she wrote. Likewise I never bought that Kit and Paul could ever have gotten far enough to be married, they were just too different. Most people don't do a 180 after they get married, the seed of who Paul really was deep down inside would have already been there and if Kit was even a fraction astute, she should have caught that. All this served was to be a plot point in the book.
Problem Number Three:
The Plot(s)
The main plot involving Nicole's death and Chambers had a "been there, done that" quality to it. The plot didn't shock me or seem like anything new, I've come across the same before or at least plots that were very close, and it wasn't even told in a fresh way. So I wasn't as affected by anything in the book as I probably should have been, partially due to the indifference I felt and the fact that I figured out everything long before the author dropped, what I guess she thought, were informational bombshells.
The book had three major plotlines: Grif and Evie's deaths, Nicole's death/prostitution ring, and Grif and the Pure Anas' philosophical moments. They weren't juggled well at all. Ms. Pettersson should have picked only one and paid more attention to developing that specific plot and the characters. The scenes with Anas (or Anne) especially didn't mesh with the other stories and felt as if the author was overreaching the boundaries set up by the book. One scene in particular was extremely bizarre and pointless to the book as a whole.
Where was the noir? I've seen enough film noirs to know it ain't here.
Problem Number Four:
The Ending
What happened at the end is what I'd expect in a book that's exclusively romance and not in a mystery/urban fantasy hybrid, which made the rushed ending seem even more ridiculous and sappy. It was incredibly unbelievable to the story and didn't seem to set up the next book in any way. Also, one of the plotlines was all but left dangling with no foreshadowing or anything. Poor, poor, poor execution. Don't expound on a storyline if you're not going to finish it up or at least leave it dangling in a way that makes the reader want to come back. All that boring set-up for a completely stupid and cheesy ending. I expected rainbows and unicorns to pop out at any moment.
Overall the book felt more like a rough copy than a finished one and definitely could have used a few more goings over. Several descriptions were rushed and chaotic or simply poorly done so that I was scrambling to picture what was going on. The book is almost 400 pages and it is simply too long. With so many storylines, I'm not sure how they managed to both crawl and have very little action at the same time. I was going to give this two stars because I didn't hate the book, that would imply that it elicited any feelings what-so-ever, but the truth of the matter is that there isn't one thing I really liked about the book either. The only way I'd read a sequel to the bafflingly-named Celestial Blues series is if it featured different leads like the aforementioned Centurions, and even then I'd cautiously dip my toes into the book.
Originally reviewed: June 29
Received: Amazon Vine
Meet one of the two main characters, rockabilly girl Katherine "Kit" Craig. She's an eternally optimistic and peppy reporter whose best friend and co-worker, Nicole, was just murdered while following a lead. Our other MC is a haunted Centurion angel named Griffin Shaw who ushers the newly murdered into the afterlife, otherwise known as the Everlast, while bemoaning the murders of both himself and his wife Evie back in 1960. After making a mistake concerning Nicole, he's been sent back to earth as a human with some angelic senses still intact. Kit and Grif soon meet up and begin investigating the circumstances around Nicole's death, whilst Griffin seeks out any details involving his own.
Problem Number One:
The Cardboard Characters
Character development is supposed to unfold over the course of a book, in this case it actually appeared to deteriorate as the book went on. Kit never developed into anything but one of those annoyingly chipper people you just want to hit with a sledgehammer, while Grif started promisingly enough but then stagnated. They were both very shallow characterizations, and on top of that, I never understood Kit's actions or reactions to just about anything. I never felt her sadness about her best friend's death, whom she rarely gave a passing thought, believed she was smart (by the end, I thought her a dolt), or seem in any way human with nary a rational thought in her head. About mid-way through the book, Grif tells her he's an angel after they kiss, so what does she do? Does she a) run away screaming, b) think he's a few feathers short of a goose and tell him to get hell out of her house and life, or c) have a calm Q&A session followed by giving him a whatfor that consists of "I won't kiss you again" and "you're watching me walk out that door (in her own house) because you can't handle any emotion blah, blah, blah by pretending you're an angel" and then proceed to attend a charity event wherein she acts and converses normally, like nothing happened? If you picked "c" *ding ding ding*, you're a winner! Because as we all know, any sensible guy will pull out the "I'm an angel" trick and expect a woman to believe him. *rolls eyes* Never was it ever crystal clear if Kit thought Grif was either crazy or a liar. It was all a bit hazy, but what can you expect from someone we're never allowed to know? All we discern is she dresses and lives (somewhat) rockabilly, but it's all a veneer to her hollowness inside, which led me to dub her Rockabilly Barbie.
<img src="http://i272.photobucket.com/albums/jj183/piscesrain/reviews/RockabillyBarbie.jpg">;
Because that's all she is and nothing more. The only character that I found a little more well-rounded was the secondary character Bridget Moore and the two Centurions introduced close to the end. Everyone else was either forgettably two-dimensional or they were a caricature, a la Caleb Chambers and Paul Raggio.
Problem Number Two:
The Relationship(s)
I'm expected to believe in a possible relationship between Grif and Rockabilly Barbie, err I mean Kit, but there's not much there to believe in. Like the characters, it was shallow with the same descriptions reiterated over and over again. Basically it's a case of telling instead of showing. I felt no love, maybe some attraction, but that's all she wrote. Likewise I never bought that Kit and Paul could ever have gotten far enough to be married, they were just too different. Most people don't do a 180 after they get married, the seed of who Paul really was deep down inside would have already been there and if Kit was even a fraction astute, she should have caught that. All this served was to be a plot point in the book.
Problem Number Three:
The Plot(s)
The main plot involving Nicole's death and Chambers had a "been there, done that" quality to it. The plot didn't shock me or seem like anything new, I've come across the same before or at least plots that were very close, and it wasn't even told in a fresh way. So I wasn't as affected by anything in the book as I probably should have been, partially due to the indifference I felt and the fact that I figured out everything long before the author dropped, what I guess she thought, were informational bombshells.
The book had three major plotlines: Grif and Evie's deaths, Nicole's death/prostitution ring, and Grif and the Pure Anas' philosophical moments. They weren't juggled well at all. Ms. Pettersson should have picked only one and paid more attention to developing that specific plot and the characters. The scenes with Anas (or Anne) especially didn't mesh with the other stories and felt as if the author was overreaching the boundaries set up by the book. One scene in particular was extremely bizarre and pointless to the book as a whole.
Where was the noir? I've seen enough film noirs to know it ain't here.
Problem Number Four:
The Ending
What happened at the end is what I'd expect in a book that's exclusively romance and not in a mystery/urban fantasy hybrid, which made the rushed ending seem even more ridiculous and sappy. It was incredibly unbelievable to the story and didn't seem to set up the next book in any way. Also, one of the plotlines was all but left dangling with no foreshadowing or anything. Poor, poor, poor execution. Don't expound on a storyline if you're not going to finish it up or at least leave it dangling in a way that makes the reader want to come back. All that boring set-up for a completely stupid and cheesy ending. I expected rainbows and unicorns to pop out at any moment.
Overall the book felt more like a rough copy than a finished one and definitely could have used a few more goings over. Several descriptions were rushed and chaotic or simply poorly done so that I was scrambling to picture what was going on. The book is almost 400 pages and it is simply too long. With so many storylines, I'm not sure how they managed to both crawl and have very little action at the same time. I was going to give this two stars because I didn't hate the book, that would imply that it elicited any feelings what-so-ever, but the truth of the matter is that there isn't one thing I really liked about the book either. The only way I'd read a sequel to the bafflingly-named Celestial Blues series is if it featured different leads like the aforementioned Centurions, and even then I'd cautiously dip my toes into the book.
Originally reviewed: June 29
Received: Amazon Vine
Connor Sheffield (293 KP) rated Bloodborne in Video Games
Aug 13, 2018
Incredible atmosphere (5 more)
Great variety of enemies
Beautiful art and imagery
Interesting Lore (optional)
Plenty of different ways to play
Great combat mechanics
Can be difficult (1 more)
Not as easy and some people make it look
Challenging and Satisfying
Contains spoilers, click to show
Bloodborne is part of the famous series of games such as Demon Souls and Dark Souls, which if you know those previous games, you'll know that they are infamous for their difficulty, even spawning an entire meme phrase that simply says "git gud".
Bloodborne however, stands aside from the souls series because it's combat mechanics are faster and each enemy requires the player to evolve their skills and tactics in order to progress. The first major difference in Bloodborne that might throw previous souls players off, is the fact that there is no shield. Instead the Hunter wields a right handed melee weapon and in the left hand they wild a ranged weapon in place of a shield. This ranged weapon at first is primarily used not for damage, but for parry's/counter attacks.
The lack of shield helps the player evolve their combat from hiding behind a shield like in the souls games, to being more aggressive in a fight but also tactical because during your first run through of the game, you'll simply be dealing with each enemy through trial and error until you learn their attacks and learn how to defeat them. This is something that has been in every souls game and that is why these games are so rewarding.
The reason Bloodborne is my favourite is because of this speed that makes you evolve in combat. I ran into this game thinking it was like other RPG games where I could pretty much take on any beginning level enemy and even if they packed a punch I'd take out the enemy with a thin line of health left, only to use a few health potions and repeat. But Bloodborne? Good God you can't rush this game!
Every enemy has their own attack system that varies. Some Yarnhamites are more vicious that other, and some are more defensive and cautious. There are also enemies that are deceptive. If you were to come across a large, fat troll in a fantasy world, you'd expect them to be rather slow, especially when swinging a weapon. You'd only expect the force and weight of the weapon to give speed to a swing. But the large troll creatures in Bloodborne are deceptively fast and even if you keep some distance between you, they can leap really quickly and instantly pummel you with a cinder block.
But I'm not going to reveal too much about enemies because it's easier and more fun to test out the game for yourself.
Boss fights are the main factor for the infamous difficulty of the souls series and Bloodborne is no stranger to this element either. There are Two bosses in the beginning of the game. One is optional but I would highly recommend facing it. The other boss is your first taste (if you didn't kill the optional boss first) of the challenges you'll face. Both bosses help prepare for later boss fights because of their different combat styles.
The first (optional) boss is the Cleric Beast on the bridge in the beginning level, and it is intimidating as fuck for a beginner of the souls series. If you haven't watched or played a souls game before and you go into Bloodborne (or any of them) with no knowledge of the scale of bosses, then they are intimidating in comparison to your measly character size. However once you learn this boss, and face later bosses, you'll realize that this boss is one of the easiest to face.
The next boss and the main boss of the beginning level, who is not optional as defeating him let's you progress through the story, is Father Gascoigne, another Hunter in the world of Bloodborne and the first of many you'll come across but facing this hunter is by far one of the most painstakingly challenging beginning fights to a game I've ever had to face. In my first run through I died to him so so soooo many times and sometimes it was simply cos he was on low health and I got cocky and fucked up. However defeating this boss, and any boss in this game, really feels like an achievement.
I've realised iv made this review hella long but that's because Bloodborne cannot be easily reviewed in just a few words but I'll do my best to do a quick overall conclusion as to why this is my favourite game:
The level design isn't flawless but it is incredible and the atmosphere created through sound design and soundtrack make this game incredibly in depth and really creepy which I love because even after a few play through I still get creeped out and even jump at some of the jumpscares that I forget about!
The weapons of this game are all well designed aesthetically and though I know certain ones I never use, they are all useable depending on player preference and style of play. There's so much to choose from and learn and every item in this game has a description that teaches the player more about the Lore of the world but that is of course optional and isn't required necessarily to understand the games main quest plot.
This game also requires exploration because the path the player needs to take isn't set out for them which makes the game less linear meaning that you can play this game differently every time you play it. It also might mean that you'll need to look up the paths you need to take online or in a guide in order to just get through the game and complete it. Otherwise it could take you hours, maybe days to figure out where you need to go.
The combat mechanics of Bloodborne are some of the best I've ever seen and played with and that's why it stands out to me above the other souls games.
The boss fights are intense and each new boss helps the player to adapt and evolve their combat skills and tactics in order to overcome the enemy.
The world is very heavily Lovecraftian and therefore the Lore is incredible but also optional. Also, there are easier ways to fight this games enemies including bosses, so if you're struggling, then Google it and there will be hundreds of players in the same boat as you, and in my opinion there's no wrong way to play games like this. If it remains fun and let's me complete the storyline, such as summoning AI for boss battles in offline mode. Then play however you want to because it's you playing the game, not some internet troll who says you're shit and/or cheating the game. If it's possible to do in game, it's part of the game...deal with it!
There are faults such as minor framerate glitches, and glitches with the ragdoll bodies of defeated enemies falling through the environment. There are also some elements that are part of the game such as windows for visceral attacks and hitboxes which sometimes feel like bullshit, but this also helps you evolve so....pros and cons.
My final comment is this;
The best way to learn about this game and enjoy it, is to play it for yourself. It's hard to put into words (even this amount of words in this review) just how incredible this game looks and feels. So if you have a Playstation 4 then grab yourself a copy of Bloodborne and enjoy!
Fear the Old blood!
Bloodborne however, stands aside from the souls series because it's combat mechanics are faster and each enemy requires the player to evolve their skills and tactics in order to progress. The first major difference in Bloodborne that might throw previous souls players off, is the fact that there is no shield. Instead the Hunter wields a right handed melee weapon and in the left hand they wild a ranged weapon in place of a shield. This ranged weapon at first is primarily used not for damage, but for parry's/counter attacks.
The lack of shield helps the player evolve their combat from hiding behind a shield like in the souls games, to being more aggressive in a fight but also tactical because during your first run through of the game, you'll simply be dealing with each enemy through trial and error until you learn their attacks and learn how to defeat them. This is something that has been in every souls game and that is why these games are so rewarding.
The reason Bloodborne is my favourite is because of this speed that makes you evolve in combat. I ran into this game thinking it was like other RPG games where I could pretty much take on any beginning level enemy and even if they packed a punch I'd take out the enemy with a thin line of health left, only to use a few health potions and repeat. But Bloodborne? Good God you can't rush this game!
Every enemy has their own attack system that varies. Some Yarnhamites are more vicious that other, and some are more defensive and cautious. There are also enemies that are deceptive. If you were to come across a large, fat troll in a fantasy world, you'd expect them to be rather slow, especially when swinging a weapon. You'd only expect the force and weight of the weapon to give speed to a swing. But the large troll creatures in Bloodborne are deceptively fast and even if you keep some distance between you, they can leap really quickly and instantly pummel you with a cinder block.
But I'm not going to reveal too much about enemies because it's easier and more fun to test out the game for yourself.
Boss fights are the main factor for the infamous difficulty of the souls series and Bloodborne is no stranger to this element either. There are Two bosses in the beginning of the game. One is optional but I would highly recommend facing it. The other boss is your first taste (if you didn't kill the optional boss first) of the challenges you'll face. Both bosses help prepare for later boss fights because of their different combat styles.
The first (optional) boss is the Cleric Beast on the bridge in the beginning level, and it is intimidating as fuck for a beginner of the souls series. If you haven't watched or played a souls game before and you go into Bloodborne (or any of them) with no knowledge of the scale of bosses, then they are intimidating in comparison to your measly character size. However once you learn this boss, and face later bosses, you'll realize that this boss is one of the easiest to face.
The next boss and the main boss of the beginning level, who is not optional as defeating him let's you progress through the story, is Father Gascoigne, another Hunter in the world of Bloodborne and the first of many you'll come across but facing this hunter is by far one of the most painstakingly challenging beginning fights to a game I've ever had to face. In my first run through I died to him so so soooo many times and sometimes it was simply cos he was on low health and I got cocky and fucked up. However defeating this boss, and any boss in this game, really feels like an achievement.
I've realised iv made this review hella long but that's because Bloodborne cannot be easily reviewed in just a few words but I'll do my best to do a quick overall conclusion as to why this is my favourite game:
The level design isn't flawless but it is incredible and the atmosphere created through sound design and soundtrack make this game incredibly in depth and really creepy which I love because even after a few play through I still get creeped out and even jump at some of the jumpscares that I forget about!
The weapons of this game are all well designed aesthetically and though I know certain ones I never use, they are all useable depending on player preference and style of play. There's so much to choose from and learn and every item in this game has a description that teaches the player more about the Lore of the world but that is of course optional and isn't required necessarily to understand the games main quest plot.
This game also requires exploration because the path the player needs to take isn't set out for them which makes the game less linear meaning that you can play this game differently every time you play it. It also might mean that you'll need to look up the paths you need to take online or in a guide in order to just get through the game and complete it. Otherwise it could take you hours, maybe days to figure out where you need to go.
The combat mechanics of Bloodborne are some of the best I've ever seen and played with and that's why it stands out to me above the other souls games.
The boss fights are intense and each new boss helps the player to adapt and evolve their combat skills and tactics in order to overcome the enemy.
The world is very heavily Lovecraftian and therefore the Lore is incredible but also optional. Also, there are easier ways to fight this games enemies including bosses, so if you're struggling, then Google it and there will be hundreds of players in the same boat as you, and in my opinion there's no wrong way to play games like this. If it remains fun and let's me complete the storyline, such as summoning AI for boss battles in offline mode. Then play however you want to because it's you playing the game, not some internet troll who says you're shit and/or cheating the game. If it's possible to do in game, it's part of the game...deal with it!
There are faults such as minor framerate glitches, and glitches with the ragdoll bodies of defeated enemies falling through the environment. There are also some elements that are part of the game such as windows for visceral attacks and hitboxes which sometimes feel like bullshit, but this also helps you evolve so....pros and cons.
My final comment is this;
The best way to learn about this game and enjoy it, is to play it for yourself. It's hard to put into words (even this amount of words in this review) just how incredible this game looks and feels. So if you have a Playstation 4 then grab yourself a copy of Bloodborne and enjoy!
Fear the Old blood!
Mothergamer (1511 KP) rated the PlayStation 4 version of Dauntless in Video Games
Jun 21, 2019
My husband Ron plays a lot of Dauntless. I did try Dauntless out on PC and I did like it, but with the arthritis in my hands it was difficult to handle the controls and it is not easy to map out a controller for Dauntless so it's not very controller friendly for PC. When the announcement was made that Dauntless would be cross platform play I was thrilled. This meant I could try out the game fully on our PS4 and play the game with Ron while he played the game on PC. I seriously counted down the days until the cross platform play launch. Launch day came and honestly there were a lot of issues. People couldn't log in, there was an infinite loading screen upon login, there were lag spikes, and sometimes people got kicked from the game altogether. I decided I would wait a week before I tried to play the game. I guess everyone was excited for cross platform play and the servers got crushed under the weight which is understandable considering Dauntless got four million people all ready to get out there and enjoy the game.
When I did get to start the game, I was excited. Dauntless is free to play and is set in a fantasy world where a cataclysmic event has ripped the world apart and released giant monsters known as behemoths. You get to play as a slayer that takes down these behemoths. The first thing you get to do is create your character. There are a variety of choices with the faces, hair, and makeup for the character creation. I had fun choosing all the things to make my slayer look the way I wanted.
Once the character is created you are logged into the game with an introduction explaining the world of Dauntless and this comes with a tutorial on how to fight the behemoths, how to use flares to signal where the behemoth is to your team, and how to stagger them. The controls for PS4 are great and the tutorial flowed seamlessly for me. When the tutorial is over you are back in the town of Ramsgate where you can pick up quests and craft items you need for hunts such as armor, weapons, and tonics. There are also a couple of adorable dogs in the game that you can actually stop and pat. I pat the dogs every time I'm in the game because I love dogs even in video games.
Dauntless can be played as a solo player or multiplayer. For me, it's more fun with friends and while sometimes it's a bit of a wait to find a hunt match it's not terribly long and once you have your team you're ready to go. Before you start, you have a chance to check your weapons and armor to make sure that they will give you the advantage you need against behemoths. Depending on what their elemental is, you will want weapons that can combat that. For example with a frost behemoth weapons with fire elements on them are your best friend and having armor that protects against ice attacks are quite helpful. As your team is getting ready, the game will show you an element guide for the type of behemoth you're fighting and will show you your weapon and armor power. When the numbers are in green it means your gear is adequate for the hunt.
The behemoth fights are pretty straightforward as you work with your team to battle them. Each behemoth not only has its own unique elements, they also have various attacks they will use. Being able to recognize their movements when they are starting their special attack is vital so that you can dodge and go in for a counter attack. Breaking off parts of the monster is important as well because you will need those parts for crafting armor and weapons. The fights are a lot of fun and when you vanquish a behemoth it feels pretty rewarding. You do get ranked on how you did in the fight and so does your team. Don't be too discouraged if your rank isn't so good when you are first starting out. As you level and improve your armor and weapons that rank will go up. Patience is key.
Depending on the type of build you want for your weapons and armor, there are specific behemoths you will need to hunt in order to get the materials needed. The great thing about Dauntless is that it allows you to try out all the weapons and experiment with them to get a feel for each one and decide which weapons suit your play style. For me, I absolutely love chain blades because they allow me to move and dodge quickly while dishing out damage. Armor crafting is important too and there are a ton of choices in armor builds. You will need to talk to the smithing NPCs in order to craft the things you need and if you have the proper amount of materials, you can upgrade them. This is where the grind comes in. You should strive to constantly upgrade your weapons and armor so you can have an easier time in behemoth hunts.
Don't like the colors of the armor? No problem. You can change the color at any time if you have the color palette unlocked. You get a set of colors for free and others you can unlock doing quests or fighting heroic behemoths. If you check the rewards for the quests and heroic hunts you will see the dye color listed. The other way of course is to buy the colors with platinum and that does cost money. If you're strapped for cash, the free way while a bit of a grind is a great way to go and worth it if you would like to change the colors of your items.
There are daily rewards in Dauntless that you get from doing things such as patrols and login rewards. You get one reward per login from the NPC Gregario Flynt and the rewards range from cores you can unlock that give you cells to add to your weapons and armor or crafting materials. If you want to change your character design a bit, you can do that in Ramsgate. Approach a mirror that is near Gregario and it will take you to the character design screen and you can change and adjust your character for a whole new look.
It is a good idea to try everything out so you get a good feel for the game. You also get rewards when you level up your mastery of weapons so it is advised to try them all out so you can work on it and get some sweet rewards for it. Make sure to take breaks so you don't get burned out on the grind because there is a lot of grinding in Dauntless. However, it is such a fun grind and there is so much to see and do in it and the cross platform play adds to the fun because now no matter what platform you play on you can enjoy the game with everyone. I am off to hunt some more behemoths. See you at the next adventure!
When I did get to start the game, I was excited. Dauntless is free to play and is set in a fantasy world where a cataclysmic event has ripped the world apart and released giant monsters known as behemoths. You get to play as a slayer that takes down these behemoths. The first thing you get to do is create your character. There are a variety of choices with the faces, hair, and makeup for the character creation. I had fun choosing all the things to make my slayer look the way I wanted.
Once the character is created you are logged into the game with an introduction explaining the world of Dauntless and this comes with a tutorial on how to fight the behemoths, how to use flares to signal where the behemoth is to your team, and how to stagger them. The controls for PS4 are great and the tutorial flowed seamlessly for me. When the tutorial is over you are back in the town of Ramsgate where you can pick up quests and craft items you need for hunts such as armor, weapons, and tonics. There are also a couple of adorable dogs in the game that you can actually stop and pat. I pat the dogs every time I'm in the game because I love dogs even in video games.
Dauntless can be played as a solo player or multiplayer. For me, it's more fun with friends and while sometimes it's a bit of a wait to find a hunt match it's not terribly long and once you have your team you're ready to go. Before you start, you have a chance to check your weapons and armor to make sure that they will give you the advantage you need against behemoths. Depending on what their elemental is, you will want weapons that can combat that. For example with a frost behemoth weapons with fire elements on them are your best friend and having armor that protects against ice attacks are quite helpful. As your team is getting ready, the game will show you an element guide for the type of behemoth you're fighting and will show you your weapon and armor power. When the numbers are in green it means your gear is adequate for the hunt.
The behemoth fights are pretty straightforward as you work with your team to battle them. Each behemoth not only has its own unique elements, they also have various attacks they will use. Being able to recognize their movements when they are starting their special attack is vital so that you can dodge and go in for a counter attack. Breaking off parts of the monster is important as well because you will need those parts for crafting armor and weapons. The fights are a lot of fun and when you vanquish a behemoth it feels pretty rewarding. You do get ranked on how you did in the fight and so does your team. Don't be too discouraged if your rank isn't so good when you are first starting out. As you level and improve your armor and weapons that rank will go up. Patience is key.
Depending on the type of build you want for your weapons and armor, there are specific behemoths you will need to hunt in order to get the materials needed. The great thing about Dauntless is that it allows you to try out all the weapons and experiment with them to get a feel for each one and decide which weapons suit your play style. For me, I absolutely love chain blades because they allow me to move and dodge quickly while dishing out damage. Armor crafting is important too and there are a ton of choices in armor builds. You will need to talk to the smithing NPCs in order to craft the things you need and if you have the proper amount of materials, you can upgrade them. This is where the grind comes in. You should strive to constantly upgrade your weapons and armor so you can have an easier time in behemoth hunts.
Don't like the colors of the armor? No problem. You can change the color at any time if you have the color palette unlocked. You get a set of colors for free and others you can unlock doing quests or fighting heroic behemoths. If you check the rewards for the quests and heroic hunts you will see the dye color listed. The other way of course is to buy the colors with platinum and that does cost money. If you're strapped for cash, the free way while a bit of a grind is a great way to go and worth it if you would like to change the colors of your items.
There are daily rewards in Dauntless that you get from doing things such as patrols and login rewards. You get one reward per login from the NPC Gregario Flynt and the rewards range from cores you can unlock that give you cells to add to your weapons and armor or crafting materials. If you want to change your character design a bit, you can do that in Ramsgate. Approach a mirror that is near Gregario and it will take you to the character design screen and you can change and adjust your character for a whole new look.
It is a good idea to try everything out so you get a good feel for the game. You also get rewards when you level up your mastery of weapons so it is advised to try them all out so you can work on it and get some sweet rewards for it. Make sure to take breaks so you don't get burned out on the grind because there is a lot of grinding in Dauntless. However, it is such a fun grind and there is so much to see and do in it and the cross platform play adds to the fun because now no matter what platform you play on you can enjoy the game with everyone. I am off to hunt some more behemoths. See you at the next adventure!
Gareth von Kallenbach (965 KP) rated Warhammer: Chaosbane in Video Games
Jul 8, 2019
There have been a lot of Warhammer games released over the past year or so. Everything from managing spaceships, to Real-Time Strategy, to Tactical Combat based games have been represented between the Warhammer and the Warhammer 40,000 universe. EKO Software and Bigben decided to add the action-RPG to the mix with their fun to play Diablo clone Warhammer: Chaosbane.
Much like the games that it takes inspiration from, you have the opportunity to pick one of four characters to battle the Lords of Chaos and bring order to the land. Your standard archetype characters are all here in standard Warhammer Fantasy. The Dwarven “Slayer” class, for those who like a barbarian class to rage havoc upon his foes, The High-Elf Mage who utilizes his magic to bring down the forces of chaos, the ho-hum Imperial Soldier who can take and deal out a huge amount of damage, and the Wood Elf who uses her bow and dagger to deal damage at a frighteningly fast pace.
Each of the characters have their own unique secondary ability that allows them to gain a strategic advantage on their foes. The Slayer can vault himself into enemies (much like the Barbarian class in Diablo), The Mage can control magical projectiles towards his targets, the Imperial soldier can shield bash targets and the Wood Elf can tumble in and out of danger. I played through the vast majority of the game as the Wood Elf and learning to use her tumble ability and stay mobile is some of the best ways to beat the bosses that you will come across.
One area where Warhammer: Chaosbane improves on the standard Diablo formula is how it handles health and energy/mana. Various items you equip can provide health regeneration on their own or you also possess the ability to use a “health Potion” that refills slowly each time you use it. Thankfully this means you don’t have individual health potions cluttering up your inventory. Mana/Energy is used for special attacks and actions…each time you use a skill some of your Mana/Energy is used. There are a few ways you can recoup your energy. The first is to use your general attacks on creatures, as you successfully hit each one your energy fills a little until it tops the meter off. The other way is to reach out to your familiar who follows you around the screen. My familiar was a butterfly that I could run over to when I’d run low on energy and it would fill my meter about half way. When you utilize your familiar in this way they must also recharge, so use them wisely.
One of the more unique items that you acquire as you slice your way through the hordes of demons and undead are Blood Orbs. Blood Orbs appear on the battlefield seemingly at random (although the more enemies you cut down the more likely they are to appear). As you acquire these orbs it fills a Blood lust meter and when full imbues your character with incredible power and near invincibility until the meter runs out. The Orbs don’t stay on the battlefield forever however, and they slowly lose power the longer you wait to gather them, so it encourages you to step out of the battle (or in my case roll out of the battle) to gather them as quickly as you can. As you progress your character you’ll be given the chance to upgrade these as well which essentially allows you to fill multiple meters and grants you this special power for longer lengths of time.
Skills are broken down into various types which allow you to outfit your character to best suit your play style. There are literally dozens of both active and passive skills to choose from, and each of these skills can be upgraded as well for improved effects or damage. As the Wood Elf Elessa, I was able to summon dryads to my side to help me deal with the hordes of enemies. In edition there are also God Skills that you acquire as you level up and complete missions. These special skills unlock more powerful abilities but also unlock traits as you apply the points. Traits such as health regeneration or critical hit chances are only some of the ones that you can unlock along the God Skill tree that give you a sense that your character is becoming more unstoppable with every skill acquired.
Unfortunately, the inconsistent voice acting is what relegates Chaosbane to being good instead of great. I made the mistake of choosing the character with the worst voice acting in the bunch and if I had played through with another character I may not have noticed how truly terrible it was. Elessa delivers her lines in an almost wooden (pun intended) manner, almost as if reading directly from a script. This gets even more noticeable when on occasion her voice changes to that of a man. The developers and testers did a good job of catching most of them, but there were at least five or six dialog trees where Elessa’s voice changed completely. I have two theories on this, my first theory (although I hadn’t confirmed this) is that the character was originally meant to be portrayed as a man and was changed to add a bit more diversity to the line-up. Not that there is anything wrong with having the main characters all be male, but it certainly could have limited the appeal of the audience. My second theory is that some of the dialog was simply place holders while they were sourcing out the right voice actors and simply missed replacing the audio bytes.
Either way, Elessa isn’t the only place where the voice acting takes a turn for the worst, other characters suffer from this fate as well. While the Warhammer games have always used bravado to deliver their dialog, it is simply too over the top in most cases. The first boss I encountered sounded like Cobra Commander who had just walked off the set of the latest GI Joe Cartoon to lead the forces of Chaos…Yo Joe! The fact that the game is voice acted entirely is something that I do applaud the developers for insisting on, it’s just disappointing that you find yourself reading through the dialog as quickly as possible and skipping the voices whenever you can.
Even with its flaws Warhammer: Chaosbane is a fun Diablo clone and an absolute blast to play. The story is forgettable, the voices laughable, but the combat scratches the same itch that any other action roleplaying game provides. There’s plenty of loot to acquire, that ranges from common to rare, and your ability to “bless” items to make them more powerful is an added bonus. There are a whopping ten levels of difficulty, each level provides for a more difficult adventure with the promise of even better loot. With both couch co-op and online multiplayer, it even harkened me back to the days of playing the original Gauntlet in the arcades. If you like the Warhammer universe and are looking for a game you can pick up and play with relative ease, then Warhammer: Chaosbane is just the game you are looking for.
What I liked: Fun combat, Amazing selection of skills, Plays equally well with keyboard/mouse or controller
What I liked less: Terrible voice acting, Repetitive loot drops, Forgettable story
Much like the games that it takes inspiration from, you have the opportunity to pick one of four characters to battle the Lords of Chaos and bring order to the land. Your standard archetype characters are all here in standard Warhammer Fantasy. The Dwarven “Slayer” class, for those who like a barbarian class to rage havoc upon his foes, The High-Elf Mage who utilizes his magic to bring down the forces of chaos, the ho-hum Imperial Soldier who can take and deal out a huge amount of damage, and the Wood Elf who uses her bow and dagger to deal damage at a frighteningly fast pace.
Each of the characters have their own unique secondary ability that allows them to gain a strategic advantage on their foes. The Slayer can vault himself into enemies (much like the Barbarian class in Diablo), The Mage can control magical projectiles towards his targets, the Imperial soldier can shield bash targets and the Wood Elf can tumble in and out of danger. I played through the vast majority of the game as the Wood Elf and learning to use her tumble ability and stay mobile is some of the best ways to beat the bosses that you will come across.
One area where Warhammer: Chaosbane improves on the standard Diablo formula is how it handles health and energy/mana. Various items you equip can provide health regeneration on their own or you also possess the ability to use a “health Potion” that refills slowly each time you use it. Thankfully this means you don’t have individual health potions cluttering up your inventory. Mana/Energy is used for special attacks and actions…each time you use a skill some of your Mana/Energy is used. There are a few ways you can recoup your energy. The first is to use your general attacks on creatures, as you successfully hit each one your energy fills a little until it tops the meter off. The other way is to reach out to your familiar who follows you around the screen. My familiar was a butterfly that I could run over to when I’d run low on energy and it would fill my meter about half way. When you utilize your familiar in this way they must also recharge, so use them wisely.
One of the more unique items that you acquire as you slice your way through the hordes of demons and undead are Blood Orbs. Blood Orbs appear on the battlefield seemingly at random (although the more enemies you cut down the more likely they are to appear). As you acquire these orbs it fills a Blood lust meter and when full imbues your character with incredible power and near invincibility until the meter runs out. The Orbs don’t stay on the battlefield forever however, and they slowly lose power the longer you wait to gather them, so it encourages you to step out of the battle (or in my case roll out of the battle) to gather them as quickly as you can. As you progress your character you’ll be given the chance to upgrade these as well which essentially allows you to fill multiple meters and grants you this special power for longer lengths of time.
Skills are broken down into various types which allow you to outfit your character to best suit your play style. There are literally dozens of both active and passive skills to choose from, and each of these skills can be upgraded as well for improved effects or damage. As the Wood Elf Elessa, I was able to summon dryads to my side to help me deal with the hordes of enemies. In edition there are also God Skills that you acquire as you level up and complete missions. These special skills unlock more powerful abilities but also unlock traits as you apply the points. Traits such as health regeneration or critical hit chances are only some of the ones that you can unlock along the God Skill tree that give you a sense that your character is becoming more unstoppable with every skill acquired.
Unfortunately, the inconsistent voice acting is what relegates Chaosbane to being good instead of great. I made the mistake of choosing the character with the worst voice acting in the bunch and if I had played through with another character I may not have noticed how truly terrible it was. Elessa delivers her lines in an almost wooden (pun intended) manner, almost as if reading directly from a script. This gets even more noticeable when on occasion her voice changes to that of a man. The developers and testers did a good job of catching most of them, but there were at least five or six dialog trees where Elessa’s voice changed completely. I have two theories on this, my first theory (although I hadn’t confirmed this) is that the character was originally meant to be portrayed as a man and was changed to add a bit more diversity to the line-up. Not that there is anything wrong with having the main characters all be male, but it certainly could have limited the appeal of the audience. My second theory is that some of the dialog was simply place holders while they were sourcing out the right voice actors and simply missed replacing the audio bytes.
Either way, Elessa isn’t the only place where the voice acting takes a turn for the worst, other characters suffer from this fate as well. While the Warhammer games have always used bravado to deliver their dialog, it is simply too over the top in most cases. The first boss I encountered sounded like Cobra Commander who had just walked off the set of the latest GI Joe Cartoon to lead the forces of Chaos…Yo Joe! The fact that the game is voice acted entirely is something that I do applaud the developers for insisting on, it’s just disappointing that you find yourself reading through the dialog as quickly as possible and skipping the voices whenever you can.
Even with its flaws Warhammer: Chaosbane is a fun Diablo clone and an absolute blast to play. The story is forgettable, the voices laughable, but the combat scratches the same itch that any other action roleplaying game provides. There’s plenty of loot to acquire, that ranges from common to rare, and your ability to “bless” items to make them more powerful is an added bonus. There are a whopping ten levels of difficulty, each level provides for a more difficult adventure with the promise of even better loot. With both couch co-op and online multiplayer, it even harkened me back to the days of playing the original Gauntlet in the arcades. If you like the Warhammer universe and are looking for a game you can pick up and play with relative ease, then Warhammer: Chaosbane is just the game you are looking for.
What I liked: Fun combat, Amazing selection of skills, Plays equally well with keyboard/mouse or controller
What I liked less: Terrible voice acting, Repetitive loot drops, Forgettable story
EmersonRose (320 KP) rated The Buried Giant in Books
Nov 20, 2019
The winner of the 2017 Nobel Prize for Literature, Kazuo Ishiguro was born in 1954 in Nagasaki Japan, but he and his family moved in England in 1960. These two places and cultures have profoundly affected Ishiguro’s writing throughout his career. His first book, A Pale View of Hills, was published in 1982 and won the Winifred Holtby Memorial Prize, and he has since written seven novels and numerous short stories. His most recent book was The Buried Giant in 2015.
It is hard to pinpoint a genre to which Kazuo Ishiguro sticks to as he writes in fantasy, science-fiction, and historical. It can be said that all of his novels have the feeling of being set in the past even when the time period is not explicitly described, but the core theme that connects all of his writing together is memory. In each of his stories, Ishiguro examines how people use memory, how memory affects people, and who we are with or without memory.
Ishiguro explores many different ways in which memory affects people throughout his books ranging from memory loss to dream like memory distortion. In his books Never Let Me Go and The Remains of the Day the stories are told by narrators looking back at crucial moments in their lives. In letting us know that they are remembering their own pasts they admit that they are saying their perspective and their memory might be lacking. In this way letting the reader know that they are unreliable narrators. In The Remains of the Day the narrator, the butler Mr. Stevens decides to go on a journey to visit an old friend and along the way shows his unreliability in several ways. First in acknowledging how memory can change and fade over time.
“It occurs to me that elsewhere in attempting to gather such recollections, I may well have asserted that this memory derived from the minute immediately after Miss Kenton receiving news of her aunt’s death….But now, having thought further, I believed I may have been a little confused about this matter; that in fact, this fragment of memory derives from events that took place on an evening at least a few months after the death of Miss Kenton’s aunt” (212).
In this way, Steven’s is acknowledging human error which both shows his unreliability but gives a level of trust in the acknowledgment that he is doing his best to be truthful. This, however, is challenged because Steven’s informs us that he lies, at the very least through omission, to other characters. A clear case of this is when he allows himself to be considered a gentleman rather than a butler on several occasions throughout his journey. This becomes complex because he is allowing the reader in on the truth, but the very fact of admitting that he can lie further reveals his unreliability.
In Ishiguro’s most recent book, The Buried Giant, he looks at memory in a way that is similar to these previous stories but takes a new approach. His central two characters in this book, Axle, and Beatrice are an elderly couple setting out on a journey with almost no memory of who they are. Throughout the story, they remember or think they remember pieces of their pasts and in the process making them question who they really are. This uncertainty in themselves creates interesting questions of whether or not they want to remember their lives if they are happier not knowing, and if they can continue to live their lives the way they are with their new/old information?
“Yet are you so certain, good mistress, you wish to be free of this mist? Is it not better some things remain hidden from our minds?”
“It may be for some, father, but not for us. Axl and I wish to have again the happy moments we shared together. To be robbed of them is as if a thief came in the night and took what’s most precious from us.”
“Yet the mist covers all memories, the bad as well as the good. Isn’t that so, mistress?”
“We’ll have the bad ones come back too, even if they make us weep or shake with anger. For isn’t it the life we’ve shared?” (172).
In some of Ishiguro’s other work, he chooses to explore memory through the lens of a dreamlike state or surreal views, such as his short story A Village After Dark and the novel The Unconsoled. In these stories, the narrator enters into a new place and finds that they have slowly emerging memories connected to the places and people they meet. The Unconsoled creates a strange dynamic where the lead character Mr. Ryder has never been to this town before but finds himself confronted by childhood acquaintances as well as meeting a woman and child who treat him like husband and father and memories that support this begin to come back to him. In an interview Ishiguro did on the book in 1995, he summarizes the story as “an anxiety dream” as Mr. Ryder continually finds himself confronted with the expectation of him without being told anything in advance. At the beginning of the story, Mr. Ryder arrives at his hotel knowing that he will be playing at a concert in few days and is told he has a busy schedule up till then. At this point in the story, the anxiety dream state sets in Mr. Ryder continuously finds himself late to engagements, leaving people behind by accident and being dragged around town. As the story progresses, Mr. Ryder begins to have memories of a past associated with some of the people he has met, despite being introduced as completely new to the town. Some of these can be explained by the fact that as a reader we are dropped into a story after it has started but the memories of these instances only come back to Ryder after he has been told things have happened. This means that throughout the story it impossible to know whether or not the narrator has forgotten and is remembering or if the town is merely a dream limbo and nothing he is being told is real, to begin with.
Whether taking the more fantastical approach or the those that fall closer to realism, Ishiguro’s play with memory remains relatable to the readers. Each journey Ishiguro writes is designed to tackle something different about memory. The stories ask us questions about what memory and how much it affects who we are and our ability to live in our world. From whether or not we can know who we are without memory to how trustworthy our memories actually are. These questions, however fantastically asked, offer something to the reader that they can relate to. For memory is almost a fanatical force on its own that we all share and try to understand. It can play with us when we take it for granted and offer vulnerability and connection when shared with others. Ishiguro delves into these ideas in each of his works, ever exploring its uncertainty and power.
It is hard to pinpoint a genre to which Kazuo Ishiguro sticks to as he writes in fantasy, science-fiction, and historical. It can be said that all of his novels have the feeling of being set in the past even when the time period is not explicitly described, but the core theme that connects all of his writing together is memory. In each of his stories, Ishiguro examines how people use memory, how memory affects people, and who we are with or without memory.
Ishiguro explores many different ways in which memory affects people throughout his books ranging from memory loss to dream like memory distortion. In his books Never Let Me Go and The Remains of the Day the stories are told by narrators looking back at crucial moments in their lives. In letting us know that they are remembering their own pasts they admit that they are saying their perspective and their memory might be lacking. In this way letting the reader know that they are unreliable narrators. In The Remains of the Day the narrator, the butler Mr. Stevens decides to go on a journey to visit an old friend and along the way shows his unreliability in several ways. First in acknowledging how memory can change and fade over time.
“It occurs to me that elsewhere in attempting to gather such recollections, I may well have asserted that this memory derived from the minute immediately after Miss Kenton receiving news of her aunt’s death….But now, having thought further, I believed I may have been a little confused about this matter; that in fact, this fragment of memory derives from events that took place on an evening at least a few months after the death of Miss Kenton’s aunt” (212).
In this way, Steven’s is acknowledging human error which both shows his unreliability but gives a level of trust in the acknowledgment that he is doing his best to be truthful. This, however, is challenged because Steven’s informs us that he lies, at the very least through omission, to other characters. A clear case of this is when he allows himself to be considered a gentleman rather than a butler on several occasions throughout his journey. This becomes complex because he is allowing the reader in on the truth, but the very fact of admitting that he can lie further reveals his unreliability.
In Ishiguro’s most recent book, The Buried Giant, he looks at memory in a way that is similar to these previous stories but takes a new approach. His central two characters in this book, Axle, and Beatrice are an elderly couple setting out on a journey with almost no memory of who they are. Throughout the story, they remember or think they remember pieces of their pasts and in the process making them question who they really are. This uncertainty in themselves creates interesting questions of whether or not they want to remember their lives if they are happier not knowing, and if they can continue to live their lives the way they are with their new/old information?
“Yet are you so certain, good mistress, you wish to be free of this mist? Is it not better some things remain hidden from our minds?”
“It may be for some, father, but not for us. Axl and I wish to have again the happy moments we shared together. To be robbed of them is as if a thief came in the night and took what’s most precious from us.”
“Yet the mist covers all memories, the bad as well as the good. Isn’t that so, mistress?”
“We’ll have the bad ones come back too, even if they make us weep or shake with anger. For isn’t it the life we’ve shared?” (172).
In some of Ishiguro’s other work, he chooses to explore memory through the lens of a dreamlike state or surreal views, such as his short story A Village After Dark and the novel The Unconsoled. In these stories, the narrator enters into a new place and finds that they have slowly emerging memories connected to the places and people they meet. The Unconsoled creates a strange dynamic where the lead character Mr. Ryder has never been to this town before but finds himself confronted by childhood acquaintances as well as meeting a woman and child who treat him like husband and father and memories that support this begin to come back to him. In an interview Ishiguro did on the book in 1995, he summarizes the story as “an anxiety dream” as Mr. Ryder continually finds himself confronted with the expectation of him without being told anything in advance. At the beginning of the story, Mr. Ryder arrives at his hotel knowing that he will be playing at a concert in few days and is told he has a busy schedule up till then. At this point in the story, the anxiety dream state sets in Mr. Ryder continuously finds himself late to engagements, leaving people behind by accident and being dragged around town. As the story progresses, Mr. Ryder begins to have memories of a past associated with some of the people he has met, despite being introduced as completely new to the town. Some of these can be explained by the fact that as a reader we are dropped into a story after it has started but the memories of these instances only come back to Ryder after he has been told things have happened. This means that throughout the story it impossible to know whether or not the narrator has forgotten and is remembering or if the town is merely a dream limbo and nothing he is being told is real, to begin with.
Whether taking the more fantastical approach or the those that fall closer to realism, Ishiguro’s play with memory remains relatable to the readers. Each journey Ishiguro writes is designed to tackle something different about memory. The stories ask us questions about what memory and how much it affects who we are and our ability to live in our world. From whether or not we can know who we are without memory to how trustworthy our memories actually are. These questions, however fantastically asked, offer something to the reader that they can relate to. For memory is almost a fanatical force on its own that we all share and try to understand. It can play with us when we take it for granted and offer vulnerability and connection when shared with others. Ishiguro delves into these ideas in each of his works, ever exploring its uncertainty and power.
Purple Phoenix Games (2266 KP) rated Space Plague in Tabletop Games
Mar 9, 2021
When is the word “plague” ever a good thing? We as a people have endured several plagues and none of them could be considered super great. However, what if the term plague was merely that of endearment? What if, in a fantasy sci-fi world, a plague was merely a settler of new worlds? Now you can play as a plague and be inspired by the game’s tagline: “We are many, yet we are one. We are the plague.”
Space Plague is a new game from first time designers who hail from the country of Colombia. In it players assume the command of a race of aliens attempting to colonize a newfound planet before the other races assume majority. Each race is essentially the same, and have similar tactics, but may use these tactics differently from other races. The player who amasses the most plagues from their race by the time the game ends will be crowned champion, and settler of the new world.
DISCLAIMER: We were provided a prototype copy of this game for the purposes of this review. These are preview copy components, and I do not know for sure if the final components will be any different from these shown. Also, it is not my intention to detail every rule in the game, as there are just too many. You are invited to download the rulebook, back the game through the Kickstarter campaign, or through any retailers stocking it after fulfillment. -T
To setup, follow the instructions, as there are many steps for setup. Once complete, the game should look similar to the photo below. You will see in this photo the main board at the top, the circular world core board (in black and red), and individual board setups for three players. Of course, for this review I will be playing the purple faction: The Flat-Earthers (not that I agree with the actual group of Flat-Earthers). Each player receives the same components, just in their player color. This includes six action cards to serve as the opening hand.
Each round follows four phases: Planetary Deck, Play Action Cards, Planetary Event, and March. On the main board a Planetary Event Card is flipped at the start of each round. This will inform the players which terrain type will generate energy this turn, as well as give a glimpse into the future event that will occur once the card travels to the activation zone on the board. Once players have placed energy shards onto the requisite terrain tiles they must each choose one card to be played this turn from their hand. As each player has the same six beginning Action Cards turns may seem similar. These action cards include Producing Plague (placing a plague disc on the space furthest from the end of the terrain tile line, on top of the picture of the player’s spaceship), Producing a Captain (a stronger version of the normal plague disc), Fast Movement (allows plague discs to move twice toward the core or two discs to move one space each), Slow But Steady (allows one plague disc to move forward one space OR allows the player to place a shield disc on top of a plague to protect it from harm), and Evolving OR Getting Lucky (which allows the player to purchase an Evolution Card from the Market or to roll the energy die and place energy shards on the resulting terrain type). More action cards can be purchased at the Market and used on future turns in order to buff certain actions, abduct opponent plagues, or even create new types of plagues with special abilities.
Once all players have played and resolved their action card for the round the Planetary Event phase begins. If an event card has moved its way to the activation zone of the main board its event text is resolved now. These events signify death of plague discs if they reside on specific terrain types, allow for purchasing cards at the Market or else destroying the plague furthest toward the core, or other various and nefarious events.
When the event has been resolved the active player token is passed to the next player and the March phase ensues. Players will move each of their plague discs one space toward the core to make room for more incoming plagues and captains.
Once the final event card has made its way through each of the main board slots and past the activation zone the game will end. Players will count their plague discs that made it onto the core of the planet and the player with the most discs will win! The rules also include several tie-breakers, ending with a shared victory and a snarky, “tough toothpaste,” style of comment.
Components. Again, this is a prototype copy of the game, and components are not at all final. However, component quality aside, this game looks amazing on the table and hints at some really excellent plans for the final aesthetic. The character art and art on the cards is cartoony, but not in a bad way, and the other art in the graphic design is just stellar (checks around the room for the hook). The game feels “spacey” and “alieny” but also hip and lighthearted. I like it. I like it a lot. My hope for the final product is that the rulebook gets much more detailed, as I had to ask several questions to the designer that just were not clear or present in the rules. I am also hoping that the cards themselves will see quite a bit of beefiness added to them, as this prototype copy shipped with mega-thin cards that are delicate to handle. For a prototype, the components are good and show me what could be upon a successful Kickstarter campaign.
The gameplay is definitely something I want to discuss. I was blown away by how much fun I had playing this game! I cannot count how many times I vocalized how impressed I was with the design and how much fun I was having. I love the mechanic of giving all players the same components but allowing them to choose how to use them best for their strategies. Sometimes I felt that I need to flood my track with plagues and get them moving, while other times I wanted to just upgrade my race by using the evolution cards from the market. Those evolution cards are so interesting to use because they can change the course of the game, especially if specific cards come out near the beginning of the game.
Players can choose which world they wish to conquer at the start of each game (five were included with this copy), and each world possesses different strategies of play. That said, Space Plague definitely scores points for replayability from us.
While it was difficult to get into at first (remember all the rules questions I had), once I was able to truly learn the game it became so enjoyable, and everyone I have played with has thoroughly enjoyed it. If this is the style of game we can expect to come out of Colombia and Bamboo Studios in particular, I am very excited for the future and for the board game community as a whole. This one is a gem and I cannot recommend it highly enough. If you are looking for something a little kooky but with great art and super fun play, then it’s a no-brainer. Space Plague is a must-play at the very least.
Space Plague is a new game from first time designers who hail from the country of Colombia. In it players assume the command of a race of aliens attempting to colonize a newfound planet before the other races assume majority. Each race is essentially the same, and have similar tactics, but may use these tactics differently from other races. The player who amasses the most plagues from their race by the time the game ends will be crowned champion, and settler of the new world.
DISCLAIMER: We were provided a prototype copy of this game for the purposes of this review. These are preview copy components, and I do not know for sure if the final components will be any different from these shown. Also, it is not my intention to detail every rule in the game, as there are just too many. You are invited to download the rulebook, back the game through the Kickstarter campaign, or through any retailers stocking it after fulfillment. -T
To setup, follow the instructions, as there are many steps for setup. Once complete, the game should look similar to the photo below. You will see in this photo the main board at the top, the circular world core board (in black and red), and individual board setups for three players. Of course, for this review I will be playing the purple faction: The Flat-Earthers (not that I agree with the actual group of Flat-Earthers). Each player receives the same components, just in their player color. This includes six action cards to serve as the opening hand.
Each round follows four phases: Planetary Deck, Play Action Cards, Planetary Event, and March. On the main board a Planetary Event Card is flipped at the start of each round. This will inform the players which terrain type will generate energy this turn, as well as give a glimpse into the future event that will occur once the card travels to the activation zone on the board. Once players have placed energy shards onto the requisite terrain tiles they must each choose one card to be played this turn from their hand. As each player has the same six beginning Action Cards turns may seem similar. These action cards include Producing Plague (placing a plague disc on the space furthest from the end of the terrain tile line, on top of the picture of the player’s spaceship), Producing a Captain (a stronger version of the normal plague disc), Fast Movement (allows plague discs to move twice toward the core or two discs to move one space each), Slow But Steady (allows one plague disc to move forward one space OR allows the player to place a shield disc on top of a plague to protect it from harm), and Evolving OR Getting Lucky (which allows the player to purchase an Evolution Card from the Market or to roll the energy die and place energy shards on the resulting terrain type). More action cards can be purchased at the Market and used on future turns in order to buff certain actions, abduct opponent plagues, or even create new types of plagues with special abilities.
Once all players have played and resolved their action card for the round the Planetary Event phase begins. If an event card has moved its way to the activation zone of the main board its event text is resolved now. These events signify death of plague discs if they reside on specific terrain types, allow for purchasing cards at the Market or else destroying the plague furthest toward the core, or other various and nefarious events.
When the event has been resolved the active player token is passed to the next player and the March phase ensues. Players will move each of their plague discs one space toward the core to make room for more incoming plagues and captains.
Once the final event card has made its way through each of the main board slots and past the activation zone the game will end. Players will count their plague discs that made it onto the core of the planet and the player with the most discs will win! The rules also include several tie-breakers, ending with a shared victory and a snarky, “tough toothpaste,” style of comment.
Components. Again, this is a prototype copy of the game, and components are not at all final. However, component quality aside, this game looks amazing on the table and hints at some really excellent plans for the final aesthetic. The character art and art on the cards is cartoony, but not in a bad way, and the other art in the graphic design is just stellar (checks around the room for the hook). The game feels “spacey” and “alieny” but also hip and lighthearted. I like it. I like it a lot. My hope for the final product is that the rulebook gets much more detailed, as I had to ask several questions to the designer that just were not clear or present in the rules. I am also hoping that the cards themselves will see quite a bit of beefiness added to them, as this prototype copy shipped with mega-thin cards that are delicate to handle. For a prototype, the components are good and show me what could be upon a successful Kickstarter campaign.
The gameplay is definitely something I want to discuss. I was blown away by how much fun I had playing this game! I cannot count how many times I vocalized how impressed I was with the design and how much fun I was having. I love the mechanic of giving all players the same components but allowing them to choose how to use them best for their strategies. Sometimes I felt that I need to flood my track with plagues and get them moving, while other times I wanted to just upgrade my race by using the evolution cards from the market. Those evolution cards are so interesting to use because they can change the course of the game, especially if specific cards come out near the beginning of the game.
Players can choose which world they wish to conquer at the start of each game (five were included with this copy), and each world possesses different strategies of play. That said, Space Plague definitely scores points for replayability from us.
While it was difficult to get into at first (remember all the rules questions I had), once I was able to truly learn the game it became so enjoyable, and everyone I have played with has thoroughly enjoyed it. If this is the style of game we can expect to come out of Colombia and Bamboo Studios in particular, I am very excited for the future and for the board game community as a whole. This one is a gem and I cannot recommend it highly enough. If you are looking for something a little kooky but with great art and super fun play, then it’s a no-brainer. Space Plague is a must-play at the very least.
