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Gareth von Kallenbach (968 KP) rated Rising Storm 2: Vietnam Deluxe Edition in Video Games
Jun 19, 2019
The trend in war based shooters of late is to literally take a blast from the past. Battlefield 1 looked at WW1 and Call of Duty returned to its WWII roots for the most recent game in the series. As such when Rising Storm 2: Vietnam was announced, it seemed like a good progression and one that holds a lot of potential for gamers. The previous game in the series focused on the Pacific Rim conflicts and focused on the conflict with Japan.
This time out the focus is Vietnam and players can opt to fight for either the Vietnamese or U.S. forces and they will also be able to select a class and loadout unique to each side before entering the fray.
The matches I took part in showed off the large and detailed maps which provided plenty of options to flank and enemy or attack from cover. Fields, towns, temples, and more were all an option and I had intense battles in a multi-level building, trenches, fields, and in a town. The weapons were varied but I opted mainly for an M-16 or AK-47 depending on which side I was assigned to. I did have a great opportunity early in the match to ride on a Helicopter and took my position manning one of the machine guns, which allowed us to strafe enemy targets as we traveled.
Our focus was a mix of taking and securing an objective and of course eliminating as many enemies as I could. Using a mix of grenades and rifle shots I was able to dispatch a few enemies but you could tell that there were some seasoned players online who used to the map to their advantage and were masters at striking without being seen.
I also experienced some people who were more than happy to call in a Napalm strike without any concern to the number of friendly troops in the target area. Naturally as you progress you will rank up and have more options for your character and loadouts.
The graphics of the game were solid but did seem a bit dated compared to other shooters. But this does a great job of giving a rough and battle-worn look to the game and not trying to make a blasted and remote area looked like an over-polished presentation.
If you are a fan of team-based online shooters and want some great action in the Vietnam setting; then Rising Storm 2: Vietnam just might be the game for you.
http://sknr.net/2018/05/01/rising-storm-2-vietnam/
This time out the focus is Vietnam and players can opt to fight for either the Vietnamese or U.S. forces and they will also be able to select a class and loadout unique to each side before entering the fray.
The matches I took part in showed off the large and detailed maps which provided plenty of options to flank and enemy or attack from cover. Fields, towns, temples, and more were all an option and I had intense battles in a multi-level building, trenches, fields, and in a town. The weapons were varied but I opted mainly for an M-16 or AK-47 depending on which side I was assigned to. I did have a great opportunity early in the match to ride on a Helicopter and took my position manning one of the machine guns, which allowed us to strafe enemy targets as we traveled.
Our focus was a mix of taking and securing an objective and of course eliminating as many enemies as I could. Using a mix of grenades and rifle shots I was able to dispatch a few enemies but you could tell that there were some seasoned players online who used to the map to their advantage and were masters at striking without being seen.
I also experienced some people who were more than happy to call in a Napalm strike without any concern to the number of friendly troops in the target area. Naturally as you progress you will rank up and have more options for your character and loadouts.
The graphics of the game were solid but did seem a bit dated compared to other shooters. But this does a great job of giving a rough and battle-worn look to the game and not trying to make a blasted and remote area looked like an over-polished presentation.
If you are a fan of team-based online shooters and want some great action in the Vietnam setting; then Rising Storm 2: Vietnam just might be the game for you.
http://sknr.net/2018/05/01/rising-storm-2-vietnam/
Sarah (7798 KP) rated Kong: Skull Island (2017) in Movies
Jul 28, 2017
Script & character development (2 more)
Overused slow mo
Music
Better than Peter Jackson's version
Well this definitely wasn't worse than Peter Jackson's snorefest of a Kong movie, and I'd say it's probably on par with Gareth Edward's Godzilla film.
It's a much better story and plot than Peter Jackson's but it really suffers from a patchy script and very poor character development. The CG Kong is impressive, but the slow motion effects are really overused. There are some cheesy shots - Tom Hiddleston has obviously been told to stand around "looking macho" - and the music just doesn't work. There isn't a requirement to use all of the same classic songs just because a film is set around the time of the Vietnam war!
It's a much better story and plot than Peter Jackson's but it really suffers from a patchy script and very poor character development. The CG Kong is impressive, but the slow motion effects are really overused. There are some cheesy shots - Tom Hiddleston has obviously been told to stand around "looking macho" - and the music just doesn't work. There isn't a requirement to use all of the same classic songs just because a film is set around the time of the Vietnam war!
Matthew Krueger (10051 KP) rated Jacob's Ladder (1990) in Movies
Jan 31, 2020
Hallucinations and Flashbacks
Jacob's Ladder- is a really great psychological supernatural horror thriller. Tim Robbins is excellent in this film.
The Plot: After returning home from the Vietnam War, veteran Jacob Singer (Tim Robbins) struggles to maintain his sanity. Plagued by hallucinations and flashbacks, Singer rapidly falls apart as the world and people around him morph and twist into disturbing images. His girlfriend, Jezzie (Elizabeth Peña), and ex-wife, Sarah (Patricia Kalember), try to help, but to little avail. Even Singer's chiropractor friend, Louis (Danny Aiello), fails to reach him as he descends into madness.
Its also super underrated, not alot of people talk about this film or know about this film. Its a must watch psychological twisted supernatural horror film.
The Plot: After returning home from the Vietnam War, veteran Jacob Singer (Tim Robbins) struggles to maintain his sanity. Plagued by hallucinations and flashbacks, Singer rapidly falls apart as the world and people around him morph and twist into disturbing images. His girlfriend, Jezzie (Elizabeth Peña), and ex-wife, Sarah (Patricia Kalember), try to help, but to little avail. Even Singer's chiropractor friend, Louis (Danny Aiello), fails to reach him as he descends into madness.
Its also super underrated, not alot of people talk about this film or know about this film. Its a must watch psychological twisted supernatural horror film.
Taylor Sheridan recommended Platoon (1986) in Movies (curated)
Awix (3310 KP) rated Kong: Skull Island (2017) in Movies
Feb 9, 2018 (Updated Feb 9, 2018)
The Vietnam Movie That Time Forgot
Surprisingly effective and entertaining attempt to combine classic monster movie structure with a Vietnam War movie vibe. The secret monster-hunting agency of the US government organises an expedition to the mysterious Skull Island; everyone gets more than they bargained for. Is it a spoiler to reveal there's quite a big gorilla called Kong in residence?
Leading players Tom Hiddleston and Brie Larson seem a bit all at sea but there is some good work from the supporting cast, who know just how much of the scenery to chew - Samuel L Jackson, John Goodman, and John C Reilly all raise a smile. The monster mashes are good fun, too. You could probably argue that doing a King Kong movie where Kong never gets off the island kind of misses the point entirely, but this is still arguably the most faithful take on the general tone of the original movie since the 1930s.
Altogether much lighter on its feet and less portentous than the most recent American Godzilla, with which it is in continuity - they don't make a big deal out of this, thankfully, but all-in-all you do rather hope the forthcoming Godzilla: King of the Monsters and Godzilla Vs Kong are closer in style to this than the 2014 movie. Toho fans should stick around for the post-credits bit.
Leading players Tom Hiddleston and Brie Larson seem a bit all at sea but there is some good work from the supporting cast, who know just how much of the scenery to chew - Samuel L Jackson, John Goodman, and John C Reilly all raise a smile. The monster mashes are good fun, too. You could probably argue that doing a King Kong movie where Kong never gets off the island kind of misses the point entirely, but this is still arguably the most faithful take on the general tone of the original movie since the 1930s.
Altogether much lighter on its feet and less portentous than the most recent American Godzilla, with which it is in continuity - they don't make a big deal out of this, thankfully, but all-in-all you do rather hope the forthcoming Godzilla: King of the Monsters and Godzilla Vs Kong are closer in style to this than the 2014 movie. Toho fans should stick around for the post-credits bit.
ClareR (5577 KP) rated Wandering Souls in Books
Mar 25, 2023
Since reading Wandering Souls on The Pigeonhole, it has made it on to the Women’s Prize long list. And well-deserved it is too.
This is the story of a family who make it by boat to Hong Kong from Vietnam. At least Anh and her two brothers do. Their parents and younger siblings come after them and drown.
This is Anh’s story, and how she copes on their journey from Vietnam to Hong Kong, and then on to London where they settle permanently. It’s a story of loss, life-long trauma and the struggle to find security and happiness. It brought home the continuing issues of refugees - particularly those who take the dangerous route of the sea. It always makes me think of these lines from Warsan Shire’s “Home”:
“You have to understand that no one puts children in a boat
Unless the water is safer than the land”
Anh and her family want a better life than that of poverty, war and political oppression.
This is a dark story and the experiences have such a huge effect on every aspect of Anh and her brothers lives, and you can still see this in the interactions that Anh has with her own children.
It’s a wonderful book, and well worth reading. I’ve learnt so much about the Vietnamese people who resettled in the UK and their journeys here.
I wouldn’t be at all disappointed to see this make the short list.
This is the story of a family who make it by boat to Hong Kong from Vietnam. At least Anh and her two brothers do. Their parents and younger siblings come after them and drown.
This is Anh’s story, and how she copes on their journey from Vietnam to Hong Kong, and then on to London where they settle permanently. It’s a story of loss, life-long trauma and the struggle to find security and happiness. It brought home the continuing issues of refugees - particularly those who take the dangerous route of the sea. It always makes me think of these lines from Warsan Shire’s “Home”:
“You have to understand that no one puts children in a boat
Unless the water is safer than the land”
Anh and her family want a better life than that of poverty, war and political oppression.
This is a dark story and the experiences have such a huge effect on every aspect of Anh and her brothers lives, and you can still see this in the interactions that Anh has with her own children.
It’s a wonderful book, and well worth reading. I’ve learnt so much about the Vietnamese people who resettled in the UK and their journeys here.
I wouldn’t be at all disappointed to see this make the short list.
Hadley (567 KP) rated Gods Go Begging in Books
May 8, 2021
Amazing writing (2 more)
Great storytelling
Good characters
Not many books can visit the Vietnam war so gracefully, especially fictional books that aren't political thrillers. Of course, there's a reason for that, other than drug use and the orders to kill innocent civilians, it was a war that drove soldiers to madness, but this is only the tip of the iceberg in Alfredo Vea's third novel Gods Go Begging.
Mai and Persephone are as close as sisters, one was born in America, and the other was born in Vietnam; the two met because their husbands had fought in the Vietnam war, but had never returned, sealing an unbreakable bond between the two women. While the two spent most of their time cooking together, they decided to open up a luncheonette, and share their love of food with the city - - - until one night, when two young men showed up to smash their dreams by murdering both of them in cold blood. Little did the defense attorney for one of the young men, Jesse Pasadoble, know that these women would not only leave a scar on him, but they would also cause memories from a hill in Vietnam to haunt him all over again.
While Pasadoble is working the two women's murder case, he's also working another heart-wrenching case involving a white supremacist who has possibly molested and raped his own niece. Pasadoble tries his best to distance himself from the case, especially because he has to defend the man in question, but sometimes he lets his temper get the best of him. Pasadoble comes face-to-face with his client in an angry stare-off. After putting up with racial statements from the client, Pasadoble puts him in his place. The client may be a big man who can frighten most people, but Pasadoble pacifies him with his own anger, threatening to kick his ass in front of everyone that is in the jail setting the tone of what type of person Pasadoble can be for the reader.
The readers get flashbacks of Pasadoble's time in the Vietnam war, specifically one fight that happened on a hill near the Loatian border. These flashbacks happen suddenly throughout the book, but I personally believe that they are so important to understanding the world in which Vea has created in the novel because, near the end of the book, these flashbacks make everything come full circle. One of these flashbacks introduces an important character who is the Padre in Pasadoble's platoon - - - during such flashback, the Padre has devastating things happen around him that begin to make him question his faith in God.
Although the flashbacks happen here and there, the story easily continues on with Pasadoble's double homicide case getting more complicated by the page when the second of the two suspects is suddenly found dead on a hill that the locals call 'Tourette's Hill.' One such local that lived near the hill is one of the victims' mothers, Mrs. Harp, who is a very odd character: she's an aging beauty queen whose home is covered in photographs of only her, and none of her deceased son, and even while Pasadoble questions her about her son, she seems to get lost in a reverie of what her life was like before the son existed.
Pasadoble is the key character in this story; without him, connections would not have been made and characters would not have mattered. Pasadoble, a man who has a way with words, such as speaking with an ex-girlfriend about a 'hill' : "Carolina, think about the stratifications of an open hillside, a place where earth has given way and time itself is left exposed, layer upon layer - - - silica, clay, diatoms, and ash. Down here at this level is the time of the swelling sea; here, the time of the desert when hot, rising air would have haunted our eyes; here is a jagged karst, a time when the world shook an abrasion into its own skin; and here are the fossil dead, here you will find love and war in the same shamble of strewn bone. Here and there, where the world has shifted and cracked open, one era will touch another. And once upon the rarest time, human hands and eyes from the distant past can seek out and find... search for and contact... hands and eyes of the present time... our time. " Pasadoble reveals that everyone has a 'hill' that they constantly battle, his just happens to be the one where he lost brothers on in Vietnam.
I can't go much further into the story without giving away some of the great details that made up this book, but I can say I was blown away by this story. This is by far one of the best crime fiction books I have ever read; this is one of those crazy good books that you have never heard of that will change how you view things after you read it. Vea is one of the few authors that exist today that can make a story read like poetry. I highly recommend this novel to people who like crime fiction.
Mai and Persephone are as close as sisters, one was born in America, and the other was born in Vietnam; the two met because their husbands had fought in the Vietnam war, but had never returned, sealing an unbreakable bond between the two women. While the two spent most of their time cooking together, they decided to open up a luncheonette, and share their love of food with the city - - - until one night, when two young men showed up to smash their dreams by murdering both of them in cold blood. Little did the defense attorney for one of the young men, Jesse Pasadoble, know that these women would not only leave a scar on him, but they would also cause memories from a hill in Vietnam to haunt him all over again.
While Pasadoble is working the two women's murder case, he's also working another heart-wrenching case involving a white supremacist who has possibly molested and raped his own niece. Pasadoble tries his best to distance himself from the case, especially because he has to defend the man in question, but sometimes he lets his temper get the best of him. Pasadoble comes face-to-face with his client in an angry stare-off. After putting up with racial statements from the client, Pasadoble puts him in his place. The client may be a big man who can frighten most people, but Pasadoble pacifies him with his own anger, threatening to kick his ass in front of everyone that is in the jail setting the tone of what type of person Pasadoble can be for the reader.
The readers get flashbacks of Pasadoble's time in the Vietnam war, specifically one fight that happened on a hill near the Loatian border. These flashbacks happen suddenly throughout the book, but I personally believe that they are so important to understanding the world in which Vea has created in the novel because, near the end of the book, these flashbacks make everything come full circle. One of these flashbacks introduces an important character who is the Padre in Pasadoble's platoon - - - during such flashback, the Padre has devastating things happen around him that begin to make him question his faith in God.
Although the flashbacks happen here and there, the story easily continues on with Pasadoble's double homicide case getting more complicated by the page when the second of the two suspects is suddenly found dead on a hill that the locals call 'Tourette's Hill.' One such local that lived near the hill is one of the victims' mothers, Mrs. Harp, who is a very odd character: she's an aging beauty queen whose home is covered in photographs of only her, and none of her deceased son, and even while Pasadoble questions her about her son, she seems to get lost in a reverie of what her life was like before the son existed.
Pasadoble is the key character in this story; without him, connections would not have been made and characters would not have mattered. Pasadoble, a man who has a way with words, such as speaking with an ex-girlfriend about a 'hill' : "Carolina, think about the stratifications of an open hillside, a place where earth has given way and time itself is left exposed, layer upon layer - - - silica, clay, diatoms, and ash. Down here at this level is the time of the swelling sea; here, the time of the desert when hot, rising air would have haunted our eyes; here is a jagged karst, a time when the world shook an abrasion into its own skin; and here are the fossil dead, here you will find love and war in the same shamble of strewn bone. Here and there, where the world has shifted and cracked open, one era will touch another. And once upon the rarest time, human hands and eyes from the distant past can seek out and find... search for and contact... hands and eyes of the present time... our time. " Pasadoble reveals that everyone has a 'hill' that they constantly battle, his just happens to be the one where he lost brothers on in Vietnam.
I can't go much further into the story without giving away some of the great details that made up this book, but I can say I was blown away by this story. This is by far one of the best crime fiction books I have ever read; this is one of those crazy good books that you have never heard of that will change how you view things after you read it. Vea is one of the few authors that exist today that can make a story read like poetry. I highly recommend this novel to people who like crime fiction.
ClareR (5577 KP) rated The Great Alone in Books
Feb 6, 2018
This was my second Kristin Hannah book, and it is set in very different circumstances to the last one (the last one was The Nightingale, set during World War 2). This is set during the 1970s in Alaska, in the back of beyond.
This is a story of survival: Leni and her mother survive the violence of Leni's Vietnam War vet father (who is suffering from PTSD after being held as a prisoner by the enemy). Cora, Leni's mother, will not leave him, saying that she loves him and needs him, and repeatedly pays the price. Leni loves Alaska and her boyfriend Matthew, but tragic circumstances take her away from both for a number of years. Many years later, under different circumstances, she is able to return.
I think I really like Kristin Hannah books. The way she describes the surroundings in Alaska: the wildness, the beauty, the unpredictability. I've read a couple of books recently set in the cold, snowy arctic circle, and this only made me want to actually see it myself even more!
I know I'm only two books in to my Kristin Hannah experience, but I can't say as there is anything about either of them that I didn't like. I'll be hunting down more!
This is a story of survival: Leni and her mother survive the violence of Leni's Vietnam War vet father (who is suffering from PTSD after being held as a prisoner by the enemy). Cora, Leni's mother, will not leave him, saying that she loves him and needs him, and repeatedly pays the price. Leni loves Alaska and her boyfriend Matthew, but tragic circumstances take her away from both for a number of years. Many years later, under different circumstances, she is able to return.
I think I really like Kristin Hannah books. The way she describes the surroundings in Alaska: the wildness, the beauty, the unpredictability. I've read a couple of books recently set in the cold, snowy arctic circle, and this only made me want to actually see it myself even more!
I know I'm only two books in to my Kristin Hannah experience, but I can't say as there is anything about either of them that I didn't like. I'll be hunting down more!
David Koechner recommended Apocalypse Now (1979) in Movies (curated)
Awix (3310 KP) rated Predator (1987) in Movies
Feb 13, 2018
Testosterone-drizzled SF action movie. Elite team of mercenaries - 'veer wescuers, not assahseens!' declares Arnie at one point - are dropped into Latin American jungle on shady political mission, proceed to kill everyone in sight (maybe they need to reconsider how they think of themselves), discover formidable alien big game hunter has plans to turn them all into trophies.
The cast is charismatic, the action is exceedingly well-staged, and there's a very good monster (Jean Claude van Damme was originally supposed to play the Pred but was sacked for complaining about the suit and not being beefy enough). There's also a surprisingly understated subtext about the Vietnam War, for which fighting an invisible monster in the jungle is a not-unreasonable metaphor. Not far off the quality of the other big-name 80s SF movies; inability to produce an equally memorable follow-up suggests the Predator is a one-trick pony, however.
The cast is charismatic, the action is exceedingly well-staged, and there's a very good monster (Jean Claude van Damme was originally supposed to play the Pred but was sacked for complaining about the suit and not being beefy enough). There's also a surprisingly understated subtext about the Vietnam War, for which fighting an invisible monster in the jungle is a not-unreasonable metaphor. Not far off the quality of the other big-name 80s SF movies; inability to produce an equally memorable follow-up suggests the Predator is a one-trick pony, however.