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Baby Girl Doll House Games – Virtual Dream Home
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*** Build the cutest dollhouse for sweet baby girls in awesome doll house games! *** * Welcome,...
Sweet Baby Doll House Game
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*** Create a beautiful princess castle for your baby dolls free of charge! *** ** If you are...
Hymnal SDA-PD
Music and Reference
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Highlights: • Import your own music sheets from Dropbox, your photo album, or directly from the...
BaM Video Delay for Coaching and Personal Training
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Featured in the TOP 10 SPORTS apps in USA First real video delay - continuously showing what just...
UrbanCoach Soccer Lite
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UrbanCoach is the ultimate soccer coaching application. Manage everything about your teams. Track...
Bound for Justice Box Set
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Bound for Justice: A Box Set Against the Rules Targeted by a drug cartel, Teague is out for...
ANTHOLOGIES AND COLLECTIONS BONDAGE AND BDSM CONTEMPORARY EROTIC ROMANCE
Bob Mann (459 KP) rated The Fate of the Furious (2017) in Movies
Sep 29, 2021
Blood is thicker than Diesel.
All work and no play makes bob-the-movie-man a tardy reviewer. Still, what better way to break the fast than with “Fast and Furious 8” (aka “The Fate of the Furious”)?
Well, quite a lot of things actually!
Now, I have a confession to make (and I know for some this will be the equivalent of an appalling statement like “I’ve never seen Star Wars”). I have actually never ever seen Fast and Furious 1 through 7! (If it’s any mitigation to this cinematic crime, I did see the F-and-F wannabe “Need for Speed“).
So I was going to be completely lost with the “plot” right? Well actually, no. It was pretty easy to jump in and follow as a piece of popcorn nonsense.
The M25 water main burst was a real bitch for the Monday morning rush-hour.
For nonsense it is (hence the “rabbit ears” round the word “plot” above). The story isn’t just a bit far-fetched. It’s bat-shit crazy where the bat in question has downed a questionable vindaloo two hours earlier!
Dom (Vin Diesel) has turned on his “family”, including his squeeze, the lovely Letty (Michelle Rodriguez), and Hobbs (Dwayne Johnson, “San Andreas“), to team with the above-the-law (and above the clouds) cyber-super-terrorist Cipher (Charlize Theron, “Mad Max: Fury Road“). They have teamed up, apparently, for no other reason than to allow Cipher to ‘kick some global ass’ with a nuclear threat. But given his caring and sharing side, why the sudden betrayal of his nearest and dearest by Dom?
Ice Queen Metallica fan Theron, showing off her hardware.
Where do you begin with the nonsensical story? Jumping from Cuba (with some admittedly fun scenes, but shamelessly objectifying scantily-clad women) via Berlin and New York to the icy wastes of Siberia, it’s just an excuse to show fast cars doing ludicrously unlikely things. There is zero logic within any of the script. Here are just a handful of examples:
the team know (through enormous jumps of speculation) to be present at a particular location in the world and at exactly the time that Dom is there (arrive, look through binoculars, “Oh, there he is”!);
all cars can be automatically hijacked and remotely driven (who knew), but NOT those of the team (obviously);
fast cars/tanks/etc can be magicked from New York to Siberia (wot, no Hertz Siberia available?);
Russian nuclear codes are stolen, so obviously they can’t be changed?
a nuclear submarine is out of the water on wooden blocks, but spin the propeller really REALLY fast and it can suddenly be sailing away.
Muscle for muscle it never looked like being a fair fight.
I appreciate I am being enormously po-faced about this, and this is designed as pure escapism. But is there REALLY any need for this to be such mindless escapism? The director (Gary Gray, “The Italian Job”) and writer (Chris Morgan, responsible for parts 6 and 7) should credit their audience with rather more in the way of intelligence.
Diesel and Johnson are never going to set the acting ablaze, but Rodriquez (“Lost”) is as watchable as ever. Theron has fun with her villainy and the supporting turns by Tyrese Gibson and Ludacris are enjoyable. Nathalie Emmanuel though as Ramsey seems as uncomfortable with her “sexy English” stereotype as she should be.
A long way from Brookside. Nathalie Emmanuel uncomfortable as “the sexy one”.
Luke Evans (“The Hobbit“), Kurt Russell (“Deepwater Horizon“) and Helen Mirren (“Eye in the Sky“) turn up in entertaining but underused cameos, but it is Jason Statham as Deckard that has the most fun in the whole film, and his scenes – done largely for comic effect – are the best part of the movie. (But “math” Jason? “MATH”?? I hope your old maths teacher back in London doesn’t get to see this film).
Parking enforcement by the City Council was getting more and more stringent.
If you’re willing to park your brain at the door for two hours then it has some fun moments. But I felt the damage to my IQ might not have been worth the risk, and this really didn’t fill my cinematic tank.
Well, quite a lot of things actually!
Now, I have a confession to make (and I know for some this will be the equivalent of an appalling statement like “I’ve never seen Star Wars”). I have actually never ever seen Fast and Furious 1 through 7! (If it’s any mitigation to this cinematic crime, I did see the F-and-F wannabe “Need for Speed“).
So I was going to be completely lost with the “plot” right? Well actually, no. It was pretty easy to jump in and follow as a piece of popcorn nonsense.
The M25 water main burst was a real bitch for the Monday morning rush-hour.
For nonsense it is (hence the “rabbit ears” round the word “plot” above). The story isn’t just a bit far-fetched. It’s bat-shit crazy where the bat in question has downed a questionable vindaloo two hours earlier!
Dom (Vin Diesel) has turned on his “family”, including his squeeze, the lovely Letty (Michelle Rodriguez), and Hobbs (Dwayne Johnson, “San Andreas“), to team with the above-the-law (and above the clouds) cyber-super-terrorist Cipher (Charlize Theron, “Mad Max: Fury Road“). They have teamed up, apparently, for no other reason than to allow Cipher to ‘kick some global ass’ with a nuclear threat. But given his caring and sharing side, why the sudden betrayal of his nearest and dearest by Dom?
Ice Queen Metallica fan Theron, showing off her hardware.
Where do you begin with the nonsensical story? Jumping from Cuba (with some admittedly fun scenes, but shamelessly objectifying scantily-clad women) via Berlin and New York to the icy wastes of Siberia, it’s just an excuse to show fast cars doing ludicrously unlikely things. There is zero logic within any of the script. Here are just a handful of examples:
the team know (through enormous jumps of speculation) to be present at a particular location in the world and at exactly the time that Dom is there (arrive, look through binoculars, “Oh, there he is”!);
all cars can be automatically hijacked and remotely driven (who knew), but NOT those of the team (obviously);
fast cars/tanks/etc can be magicked from New York to Siberia (wot, no Hertz Siberia available?);
Russian nuclear codes are stolen, so obviously they can’t be changed?
a nuclear submarine is out of the water on wooden blocks, but spin the propeller really REALLY fast and it can suddenly be sailing away.
Muscle for muscle it never looked like being a fair fight.
I appreciate I am being enormously po-faced about this, and this is designed as pure escapism. But is there REALLY any need for this to be such mindless escapism? The director (Gary Gray, “The Italian Job”) and writer (Chris Morgan, responsible for parts 6 and 7) should credit their audience with rather more in the way of intelligence.
Diesel and Johnson are never going to set the acting ablaze, but Rodriquez (“Lost”) is as watchable as ever. Theron has fun with her villainy and the supporting turns by Tyrese Gibson and Ludacris are enjoyable. Nathalie Emmanuel though as Ramsey seems as uncomfortable with her “sexy English” stereotype as she should be.
A long way from Brookside. Nathalie Emmanuel uncomfortable as “the sexy one”.
Luke Evans (“The Hobbit“), Kurt Russell (“Deepwater Horizon“) and Helen Mirren (“Eye in the Sky“) turn up in entertaining but underused cameos, but it is Jason Statham as Deckard that has the most fun in the whole film, and his scenes – done largely for comic effect – are the best part of the movie. (But “math” Jason? “MATH”?? I hope your old maths teacher back in London doesn’t get to see this film).
Parking enforcement by the City Council was getting more and more stringent.
If you’re willing to park your brain at the door for two hours then it has some fun moments. But I felt the damage to my IQ might not have been worth the risk, and this really didn’t fill my cinematic tank.
Bob Mann (459 KP) rated Hell or High Water (2016) in Movies
Sep 29, 2021
“Sometimes a blind pig finds a truffle”.
One of the joys (and stresses) of the run up to the Oscar weekend is to try to catch all the major award films before the big event. As I bitched about in my BAFTA write-up, UK release dates do NOT make this an easy task, with some films like Paul Verhoeven’s “Elle”, featuring Best Actress nominee Isabelle Huppert, not released until mid March.
This week I have had the chance to catch up on two of the films with award potential that I missed at the cinema, and this is the write up of the first of those: “Hell or High Water”, was first released in September 2016, and what an excellent film it is.
Bank robberies have been featured in many hundreds of films since the early days of cinema: The Great Train Robbery for example dates back to 1903! More recent heist classics such as “Oceans 11”, “Die Hard”, “Run Lola Run” and “The Dark Knight Rises” tend towards the stylised end of the act. Where this film delivers interest is in aligning the protagonists’ drivers with the banking and mortgage ‘crimes’ featured in last year’s “The Big Short”. Add in to the movie Nutribullet a soupçon of the West Texan setting from Arthur Penn’s 1967 “Bonnie and Clyde”, turn it on and you have “Hell or High Water”.
Chris Pine (“Star Trek”) and Ben Foster (“Inferno“, “The Program“) play brothers Toby and Tanner Howard trying to rescue their deceased mother’s ranch from being foreclosed on by Texas Midlands bank. Rather than taking one of the “get out of debt” offers advertised on billboards – cleverly and insistently introduced in long panning highway shots – the brothers have their own financial plan: a scheme that involves early morning raids of the cash drawers of small-town Texas Midlands branches. But the meticulous planning of Toby, as the calm and intelligent one, are constantly at risk of upset by the unpredictable and violent actions of the loose-cannon Tanner.
Since the amounts of cash stolen are in the thousands rather than the millions, the FBI aren’t interested and the case is handed instead by aged and grumpy Texas Ranger Marcus Hamilton (Jeff Bridges, “True Grit”) and his partner Alberto (Gil Birmingham). The pair have a respectful relationship but one built around racial banter, with Hamilton constantly referring to Alberto’s Mexican/Comanche heritage. A cat and mouse game ensues with the lawmen staking out the most likely next hits. The sonorous cello strings of the soundtrack portend a dramatic finale, and we as viewers are not disappointed.
The performances of the main leads are all excellent, with Chris Pine given the chance to show more acting chops than he has had chance to with his previous Kirk/Jack Ryan characters. His chemistry with Ben Foster is just sublime. Similarly, Jeff Bridges and Gil Birmingham make for a formidable double act. It is Jeff Bridges though who has the standout performance and one that is Oscar nominated for Best Supporting Actor. (In fact with Michael Shannon also getting nominated in the same category for “Nocturnal Animals”, we can add ‘West Texan lawman’ to ‘Holocaust movies’ (a Winslet “Extras” reference there!) as the prime bait for Oscar nomination glory!)
The real winner here though is the whip-smart screenplay by Taylor Sheridan (“Sicario“) which sizzles with great lines: lines that make you grin inanely at the screen regularly through the running time.”In your last days in the nursing home, you’ll think of me and giggle” schmoozes Tanner to the pretty hotel check-in girl: a come-on clearly worth remembering as it delivers the goods, as it were.
The trick here is in building up a degree of empathy and sympathy for the characters on both sides. The ‘bad guys’ here are successfully portrayed as the banks. At the moment you can get 25/1 odds on this winning the Best Original Screenplay Oscar – but I would personally rate it right up there with “Manchester by the Sea“.
Deftly directed by Scot David Mackenzie (“Starred Up”) this is a film (the first of two!) that might well have elbowed it’s way into my Top 10 of 2016 if I’d seen it during its cinema release. Well worth catching on the small screen.
This week I have had the chance to catch up on two of the films with award potential that I missed at the cinema, and this is the write up of the first of those: “Hell or High Water”, was first released in September 2016, and what an excellent film it is.
Bank robberies have been featured in many hundreds of films since the early days of cinema: The Great Train Robbery for example dates back to 1903! More recent heist classics such as “Oceans 11”, “Die Hard”, “Run Lola Run” and “The Dark Knight Rises” tend towards the stylised end of the act. Where this film delivers interest is in aligning the protagonists’ drivers with the banking and mortgage ‘crimes’ featured in last year’s “The Big Short”. Add in to the movie Nutribullet a soupçon of the West Texan setting from Arthur Penn’s 1967 “Bonnie and Clyde”, turn it on and you have “Hell or High Water”.
Chris Pine (“Star Trek”) and Ben Foster (“Inferno“, “The Program“) play brothers Toby and Tanner Howard trying to rescue their deceased mother’s ranch from being foreclosed on by Texas Midlands bank. Rather than taking one of the “get out of debt” offers advertised on billboards – cleverly and insistently introduced in long panning highway shots – the brothers have their own financial plan: a scheme that involves early morning raids of the cash drawers of small-town Texas Midlands branches. But the meticulous planning of Toby, as the calm and intelligent one, are constantly at risk of upset by the unpredictable and violent actions of the loose-cannon Tanner.
Since the amounts of cash stolen are in the thousands rather than the millions, the FBI aren’t interested and the case is handed instead by aged and grumpy Texas Ranger Marcus Hamilton (Jeff Bridges, “True Grit”) and his partner Alberto (Gil Birmingham). The pair have a respectful relationship but one built around racial banter, with Hamilton constantly referring to Alberto’s Mexican/Comanche heritage. A cat and mouse game ensues with the lawmen staking out the most likely next hits. The sonorous cello strings of the soundtrack portend a dramatic finale, and we as viewers are not disappointed.
The performances of the main leads are all excellent, with Chris Pine given the chance to show more acting chops than he has had chance to with his previous Kirk/Jack Ryan characters. His chemistry with Ben Foster is just sublime. Similarly, Jeff Bridges and Gil Birmingham make for a formidable double act. It is Jeff Bridges though who has the standout performance and one that is Oscar nominated for Best Supporting Actor. (In fact with Michael Shannon also getting nominated in the same category for “Nocturnal Animals”, we can add ‘West Texan lawman’ to ‘Holocaust movies’ (a Winslet “Extras” reference there!) as the prime bait for Oscar nomination glory!)
The real winner here though is the whip-smart screenplay by Taylor Sheridan (“Sicario“) which sizzles with great lines: lines that make you grin inanely at the screen regularly through the running time.”In your last days in the nursing home, you’ll think of me and giggle” schmoozes Tanner to the pretty hotel check-in girl: a come-on clearly worth remembering as it delivers the goods, as it were.
The trick here is in building up a degree of empathy and sympathy for the characters on both sides. The ‘bad guys’ here are successfully portrayed as the banks. At the moment you can get 25/1 odds on this winning the Best Original Screenplay Oscar – but I would personally rate it right up there with “Manchester by the Sea“.
Deftly directed by Scot David Mackenzie (“Starred Up”) this is a film (the first of two!) that might well have elbowed it’s way into my Top 10 of 2016 if I’d seen it during its cinema release. Well worth catching on the small screen.
Daniel Boyd (1066 KP) rated Hitman in Video Games
Oct 19, 2017 (Updated Oct 19, 2017)
Solid mechanics. (1 more)
Allows for player experimentation.
Story is garbage. (1 more)
Lack of cohesion.
Episodic Bloodshed
Before diving in, I feel like I should preface this review by pointing out that although this Hitman game was released episodically over the course of eight months, I bought the entire season digitally and played through all 6 levels consecutively. The main reason being; I am a big fan of the Hitman series, but wasn’t onboard with the stunted release schedule trend that this game was adhering to.
You can look at this game in two different ways. If you accept it as an adaption of the Hitman games that have preceded it, presented in a new format type for a new audience, then it’s great and it totally achieves what it set out to do. If like me, you were hoping for something more like the PS2 era games in the series, you will most likely be disappointed. Whether you love or loathe this new way that Hitman is being presented to us, I think it’s fair to say that it is certainly different to what we are used to.
At this point, after playing through the entire game over the last month or so, I have learned to accept it for what it is and came to the conclusion that it’s not the Hitman I remember from my preteen days and that’s okay. It is a different take on the series’ traditional underlying themes and mechanics, updated for a modern audience and even as a die hard, old school fan of the franchise, I can appreciate that.
My favourite thing about this game is that it allows you, as the player, to decide on the level of respect the game treats you with. What I mean by that is, if you have never touched a Hitman game, or even a stealth game before, this is a fantastic starting point. If you are looking for a my-first-premeditated-murder-simulator experience, this is the best recommendation I can think of. Just buy the entire season, boot up the game, play through each stage in order and on normal difficulty and follow the step by step prompts to take down each target. If you play this way, the game ends up functioning as a Wiki-how for any of the past games in the series and can even be used to train you to be better at stealth games in general. However, if you consider yourself a more of a hardcore, matter-of-fact assassin and want the most immersive and unencumbered version of the experience, you can totally have that also.
I know that it isn’t a popular opinion, but I enjoyed my time with Absolution, (the previous entry in the franchise,) however I agree with the overall belief that that game didn’t know what it wanted to be. This latest Hitman game knows exactly what it wants to be and executes what it sets out to do beautifully. Even if you aren’t a fan of the new way this game plays out, it is irrefutable to say that it doesn’t confidently accomplish its intention.
In addition, the technical elements of the game are fairly solid also. The gameplay is precise but fun, the gameplay graphics are pretty nice to look at and the cut-scene graphics are almost photorealistic. The level design functions well to compliment the tasks that you are assigned meaning, the use of lighting and strategic placement of weapons and items etc doesn’t seem too out of place. I experienced some cosmetic glitches and clipping during my time with the game, but never anything game-breaking. The only technical issue that severely hindered my experience was the online connectivity, or lack thereof. I can recall multiple times where I was in the middle of choosing my custom loadout before endeavouring on my next mission, only to be kicked out of the menu halfway through and told that connectivity to the server had been lost. This grew tedious after around the tenth time it happened and more than once caused me to put the controller down and stop playing for the night as multiple attempts to re-establish a connection were in vain.
Lastly, the story is unfortunately unremarkable; it is just a heartless, tacked on excuse for you to move from one setting to the next, but it functions as a justification for 47 to travel to the various locations where the missions take place. The only other downside to this experience was the feel of the game. This criticism is hard to put into words, but in the six missions; the process going in and out of each location as smoothly as possible, coupled with the focus on gameplay mechanics and the lack of cohesiveness to the story makes for a disjointed experience that I don’t think will stay with me over a significant amount of time other than thinking back and saying, “that stealth game had some really well implemented mechanics.” I don’t think that I will ever feel any real nostalgia for this game, nor will it stand out in my mind for anything other than its technical elements. Although the locations are vast and the opportunities the player can take advantage of are numerous, the game feels brief and somewhat unfinished once you complete it. You really get the feeling of this being part of an ongoing series, rather than a solid standalone game. The lack of any definitive beginning, middle and end sections to the game makes it feel rather unsatisfying once you reach the climax and causes the game overall to be more of a mesh of various missions clumsily thrown together, rather than a progressive chapter it 47’s career. The game I played immediately before Hitman, was Nier: Automata and that game managed to have both solid mechanics and some heart within it too. I know that 47 is supposed to be a cold, calculated, heartless killer, but that doesn’t mean that the games he stars in have to be heartless as well.
Overall, this is a solid stealth game and there is a lot of fun to be had here. Just know going in, if you are a long time Hitman fan, some things are going to be different. That doesn’t mean they will necessarily be bad, but you will certainly see a new spin being put on the tried and tested mechanics of past game in the franchise. If this is your first stealth game, then I would say that there is no better introduction into the genre, especially if you use the Opportunities menu. Unfortunately though, it does seem more like a variation of well made parts, rather than a solid, cohesive whole.
You can look at this game in two different ways. If you accept it as an adaption of the Hitman games that have preceded it, presented in a new format type for a new audience, then it’s great and it totally achieves what it set out to do. If like me, you were hoping for something more like the PS2 era games in the series, you will most likely be disappointed. Whether you love or loathe this new way that Hitman is being presented to us, I think it’s fair to say that it is certainly different to what we are used to.
At this point, after playing through the entire game over the last month or so, I have learned to accept it for what it is and came to the conclusion that it’s not the Hitman I remember from my preteen days and that’s okay. It is a different take on the series’ traditional underlying themes and mechanics, updated for a modern audience and even as a die hard, old school fan of the franchise, I can appreciate that.
My favourite thing about this game is that it allows you, as the player, to decide on the level of respect the game treats you with. What I mean by that is, if you have never touched a Hitman game, or even a stealth game before, this is a fantastic starting point. If you are looking for a my-first-premeditated-murder-simulator experience, this is the best recommendation I can think of. Just buy the entire season, boot up the game, play through each stage in order and on normal difficulty and follow the step by step prompts to take down each target. If you play this way, the game ends up functioning as a Wiki-how for any of the past games in the series and can even be used to train you to be better at stealth games in general. However, if you consider yourself a more of a hardcore, matter-of-fact assassin and want the most immersive and unencumbered version of the experience, you can totally have that also.
I know that it isn’t a popular opinion, but I enjoyed my time with Absolution, (the previous entry in the franchise,) however I agree with the overall belief that that game didn’t know what it wanted to be. This latest Hitman game knows exactly what it wants to be and executes what it sets out to do beautifully. Even if you aren’t a fan of the new way this game plays out, it is irrefutable to say that it doesn’t confidently accomplish its intention.
In addition, the technical elements of the game are fairly solid also. The gameplay is precise but fun, the gameplay graphics are pretty nice to look at and the cut-scene graphics are almost photorealistic. The level design functions well to compliment the tasks that you are assigned meaning, the use of lighting and strategic placement of weapons and items etc doesn’t seem too out of place. I experienced some cosmetic glitches and clipping during my time with the game, but never anything game-breaking. The only technical issue that severely hindered my experience was the online connectivity, or lack thereof. I can recall multiple times where I was in the middle of choosing my custom loadout before endeavouring on my next mission, only to be kicked out of the menu halfway through and told that connectivity to the server had been lost. This grew tedious after around the tenth time it happened and more than once caused me to put the controller down and stop playing for the night as multiple attempts to re-establish a connection were in vain.
Lastly, the story is unfortunately unremarkable; it is just a heartless, tacked on excuse for you to move from one setting to the next, but it functions as a justification for 47 to travel to the various locations where the missions take place. The only other downside to this experience was the feel of the game. This criticism is hard to put into words, but in the six missions; the process going in and out of each location as smoothly as possible, coupled with the focus on gameplay mechanics and the lack of cohesiveness to the story makes for a disjointed experience that I don’t think will stay with me over a significant amount of time other than thinking back and saying, “that stealth game had some really well implemented mechanics.” I don’t think that I will ever feel any real nostalgia for this game, nor will it stand out in my mind for anything other than its technical elements. Although the locations are vast and the opportunities the player can take advantage of are numerous, the game feels brief and somewhat unfinished once you complete it. You really get the feeling of this being part of an ongoing series, rather than a solid standalone game. The lack of any definitive beginning, middle and end sections to the game makes it feel rather unsatisfying once you reach the climax and causes the game overall to be more of a mesh of various missions clumsily thrown together, rather than a progressive chapter it 47’s career. The game I played immediately before Hitman, was Nier: Automata and that game managed to have both solid mechanics and some heart within it too. I know that 47 is supposed to be a cold, calculated, heartless killer, but that doesn’t mean that the games he stars in have to be heartless as well.
Overall, this is a solid stealth game and there is a lot of fun to be had here. Just know going in, if you are a long time Hitman fan, some things are going to be different. That doesn’t mean they will necessarily be bad, but you will certainly see a new spin being put on the tried and tested mechanics of past game in the franchise. If this is your first stealth game, then I would say that there is no better introduction into the genre, especially if you use the Opportunities menu. Unfortunately though, it does seem more like a variation of well made parts, rather than a solid, cohesive whole.
Paul Kellett (118 KP) rated Fallen Land: A Post Apocalyptic Board Game in Tabletop Games
May 9, 2019
Great theme, very immersive (2 more)
Solo playable
Plenty of replayability
A bit fiddly to keep track of things (1 more)
A lot of little rules to remember
An Immersive Post Apocalyptic survival game
I don't know where I was when this launched on Kickstarter, but it totally passed me by until I started seeing a few posts on Facebook groups a couple of weeks ago. My interest was piqued and after watching a few videos and reading the reviews here, I took the plunge and ordered it from Fallen Dominion Studios. I got the base came and the expansion which adds more cards, rules for an epic 6 player game as well as 2 solo variants. Delivery to the UK was super quick, about 10 days and the shipping price was good.
On first opening the box, you are greeted with a few punchboards, the game board and a ton of cards, there is a lot contained in such a small box.
After punching and organising everything, I read the rules, painted the little plastic faction tokens and made some character inventory sleeves to help keep the play area neat.
The rules are really well written and easy to follow & understand with plenty of examples and pictures. there is a helpful index on the inside back page so you can quickly find anything you need mid-game.
The first solo variant is basically just a "reach the victory point win in as few turns as possible" - a great way to quickly learn the basics of the game and very enjoyable. It will be good if you just want to play a fairly quick (60-90 minute) survival/exploration game.
The second solo rule set is where the game really kicks into high gear. You choose a number of opponent factions depending on how much of a challenge you want and during the Town Business Phase, roll a D10 for each faction, comparing the result to a chart in the book to see what each faction does. these results can boost each faction up one or both of the victory point tracks (getting to the top of either one is a win) or more importantly, initiating PvP combat against your faction.
While this is still not the same as playing against real opponents, it offers a great challenge that will test your luck and skill to beat.
So what sets this game out as a solo gem? It's one of the most immersive games I've played. It's part open-world survival boardgame, part rpg and part story book.
You are the leader of a faction of survivors following a devastating war that destroyed the US leaving pockets of survivors trying to eke out a living among the radioactive ruins. As you make your way around the map, trying to secure vital resources or checking out points of interest, you will be drawing encounter cards and trying to complete them.
You control a team of 5 characters plus a vehicle if you are lucky and start the game with 10 items (from assault rifles to baseball bats, med kits to body armour and everything in between) which you can equip to each character any way you see fit. Some characters will get a bonus if they have certain items and some items can grant boosts to your entire party.
Here is where the RPG feel comes in. Each character and Item has a row of skill attribute boxes along the bottom edge of the card with skills such as Combat, Survival, Medical, Mechanics and Diplomacy. Your character card has a maximum carrying capacity and each item a weight so your character can only carry a certain number of items.
Skill checks are simple, you add up the total values in each attribute column of your character plus his/her equipment. Every 10 is an automatic success. Then you roll a D10 and must roll equal to or lower than the unit value. So, if your combat total is 14, then you get 1 success for the 10 and then must roll 4 or less to get a second success. This makes equipping items very important as not only do you want your skills to be as high as possible, it's often preferable to store an item for later if it would result in a lower unit thus making the die roll harder.
On to the encounters. There are a lot of them. Seriously, loads and each one on them has a mini story delving into another aspect of life after 'the war'. These add so much to the feeling of being immersed in a full world and are varied and well written. Each encounter will list a series of skill checks and the number of successes you need to pass. This is Ameritrash at it's finest Read a story, roll a bunch of dice and the deal with the outcome. A successful result will see you off with a new stash of items, victory points or maybe even new characters you can rotate into your team to replace injured members or just improve your chances with better skills.
There is so much in this game, the sheer number of cards is immense. the replayability is sky high as you will never see everything this game can offer. There are character combinations that complement each other if used together (what are the chances of drawing a husband and his wife together out of a deck of over 100 cards?), locations and storylines that trigger bonus effects if you have the right gear and 10 different factions each with their own skills and bonuses.
This game is certainly not for everyone - if you don't like luck-based games then you might not enjoy the amount of dice rolling and card drawing in Fallen Land.
The art is also divisive. It's very stylized and cartoony but it works with the feel of the game. It's not a pretty experience, everything is broken and destroyed, it's a harsh, Mad Max world of brutal survival and the art on the cards kind of fits this feel and to be honest, most of it ends up covered up and you concentrate more on reading the stories and trying to survive.
All in all a great so experience and a fantastic, brutal multiplayer game.
On first opening the box, you are greeted with a few punchboards, the game board and a ton of cards, there is a lot contained in such a small box.
After punching and organising everything, I read the rules, painted the little plastic faction tokens and made some character inventory sleeves to help keep the play area neat.
The rules are really well written and easy to follow & understand with plenty of examples and pictures. there is a helpful index on the inside back page so you can quickly find anything you need mid-game.
The first solo variant is basically just a "reach the victory point win in as few turns as possible" - a great way to quickly learn the basics of the game and very enjoyable. It will be good if you just want to play a fairly quick (60-90 minute) survival/exploration game.
The second solo rule set is where the game really kicks into high gear. You choose a number of opponent factions depending on how much of a challenge you want and during the Town Business Phase, roll a D10 for each faction, comparing the result to a chart in the book to see what each faction does. these results can boost each faction up one or both of the victory point tracks (getting to the top of either one is a win) or more importantly, initiating PvP combat against your faction.
While this is still not the same as playing against real opponents, it offers a great challenge that will test your luck and skill to beat.
So what sets this game out as a solo gem? It's one of the most immersive games I've played. It's part open-world survival boardgame, part rpg and part story book.
You are the leader of a faction of survivors following a devastating war that destroyed the US leaving pockets of survivors trying to eke out a living among the radioactive ruins. As you make your way around the map, trying to secure vital resources or checking out points of interest, you will be drawing encounter cards and trying to complete them.
You control a team of 5 characters plus a vehicle if you are lucky and start the game with 10 items (from assault rifles to baseball bats, med kits to body armour and everything in between) which you can equip to each character any way you see fit. Some characters will get a bonus if they have certain items and some items can grant boosts to your entire party.
Here is where the RPG feel comes in. Each character and Item has a row of skill attribute boxes along the bottom edge of the card with skills such as Combat, Survival, Medical, Mechanics and Diplomacy. Your character card has a maximum carrying capacity and each item a weight so your character can only carry a certain number of items.
Skill checks are simple, you add up the total values in each attribute column of your character plus his/her equipment. Every 10 is an automatic success. Then you roll a D10 and must roll equal to or lower than the unit value. So, if your combat total is 14, then you get 1 success for the 10 and then must roll 4 or less to get a second success. This makes equipping items very important as not only do you want your skills to be as high as possible, it's often preferable to store an item for later if it would result in a lower unit thus making the die roll harder.
On to the encounters. There are a lot of them. Seriously, loads and each one on them has a mini story delving into another aspect of life after 'the war'. These add so much to the feeling of being immersed in a full world and are varied and well written. Each encounter will list a series of skill checks and the number of successes you need to pass. This is Ameritrash at it's finest Read a story, roll a bunch of dice and the deal with the outcome. A successful result will see you off with a new stash of items, victory points or maybe even new characters you can rotate into your team to replace injured members or just improve your chances with better skills.
There is so much in this game, the sheer number of cards is immense. the replayability is sky high as you will never see everything this game can offer. There are character combinations that complement each other if used together (what are the chances of drawing a husband and his wife together out of a deck of over 100 cards?), locations and storylines that trigger bonus effects if you have the right gear and 10 different factions each with their own skills and bonuses.
This game is certainly not for everyone - if you don't like luck-based games then you might not enjoy the amount of dice rolling and card drawing in Fallen Land.
The art is also divisive. It's very stylized and cartoony but it works with the feel of the game. It's not a pretty experience, everything is broken and destroyed, it's a harsh, Mad Max world of brutal survival and the art on the cards kind of fits this feel and to be honest, most of it ends up covered up and you concentrate more on reading the stories and trying to survive.
All in all a great so experience and a fantastic, brutal multiplayer game.