Who likes action movies?!?!

I recently watched The Raid: Redemption. Spoilers ahead.

And it was awesome. So if you are fan of action films, I would recommend you stop reading and go watch it now.

If you still want to read watch this
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W9BCa5Ijprw&feature=relmfu

This movie really is one of the best action movies in a long time. Many action movies these days employ a shaky cam and don't really allow you to see much of the action or really give you much chance for you to interpret what exactly is happening on screen. But this movie actually does.

Does the camera shake yes, but not to a ridiculous degree. It puts right into the action but you are seeing all the impressive fight choreography and the brutality of the combat clearly. It all just clicks. The movie has a storyline you can follow, but it doesn't get in the way of the action, nor does the action get in the way of the story. This movie knows that it is an action movie and doesn't try do anything too fancy. And that is part of it's charm. There aren't any long monologues or artsy sequences. Just a straight action movie and damn fine one at that.

It's awesome. Go watch it

A Most Dishonorable Victory!!

This is brought you by Ikusa

Aka Samurai Swords aka Shogun.

It is a game where you take command in feudal Japan and wage war for the provinces. It is samurai, so I am naturally inclined to like it.

You control 3 armies that maneuver and divide up the various lands and then go to work. All of your bits I kept in a nice looking tray that comes with a card that lets you plan you koku expenditure in secret before you reveal your plays and carry out the orders. It also gives a nice overview of the turn phases, costs of units and their combat roll.

Combat is handled in a ranged phase, remove casualties, then a melee phase. You can levy units to build up your provincial forces or your roaming armies, build castles, hire ronin to bolsters your forces, or ninja's to assassinate enemy daimyo or act as spies revealing your enemies plans.

It is all a lot of fun and spreads you slightly thing considering how large your empire starts at the beginning of the game. As you lose daimyo's you armies may grow larger, but you are not as flexible.

Today I played a very good game of Ikusa with my pals Alister & Mike. So here is the overview  of the game.

On the 2nd turn I managed to slay one of Mike's daimyo's and eliminate one of his 3 armies. Soon after Alister wiped out one of my armies and I made an ill fate alliance with Mike to not wage war on his lands so long as he doesn't on mine. Before I could recover from the first daimyo loss, Alister destroyed my 2nd force leaving me with only 1 lone army which I proceeded to build up. Meanwhile Mike maneuvered and made a surprise strike on one of Alister's armies and then immediately attacked another managing to take out both, but with heavy casualties.

This left Mike with 2 armies, Alister with 1 fortifying his position in the center of the map and me with 1 moving and reinforcing to have the final battle of the game. We both hired as many ronin as we could muster and I moved my forces in for the attack. Alister's defenses proved too much and I took heavy losses till only my last daimyo remained.

Then Mike's ninja struck!!! Killing my daimyo and winning the game in a most clever but dishonorable way.

And this is why playing board games is great. It felt great to lose. Alister and I were so wrapped up in our battle that we forgot about Mike hiring the ninja. It was a big gamble that relied on 1 of us having only 1 unit left in our armies and getting an 8 or less on a 12-sided die roll. Oh it was exciting and a very satisfying way to end the game.

Plus it always great to spend time with friends, which board games are a great way to do that

Oh Netrunner, How I've missed you

There was a time when Magic: The Gathering was starting to hit it's stride and I wanted to get into it.  Everything about seemed awesome. It had magic and fantasy and warriors and you were a wizard doing battle with other wizards! But there was a problem. My mom didn't like the game.

The reason for this involves us visiting family friends. One of the children played Magic: The Gathering and my mom asked him about it. She found out about the various colors. Then when she talked to me about it, she told me she didn't want me playing it because white decks always lose. Now before you judge she was operating on the logic of a shitty MtG player. The guy clearly sucked if white decks he played always lost. Now that I am adult I could buy cards and play on my own and my favorite color is white. And I win plenty of games.

In the time before I was able to buy my own MtG, my mom was awesome enough to buy me an alternate card game. That game was Netrunner. Made by the same person who created Magic: The Gathering. It is a 2 player asymmetrical game, meaning the the Runner plays and presents his cards on the table is different from the way the Corporation player does. And the cards were really cool looking to boot. Plus it was cyberpunk, which I am big fan of in general.

Look at that OWL!!! Also, I think owls are cool.

But I never actually managed to play it. I was too young and didn't have anyone interested in playing it, but now FFG has re-imagined the game in Android: Netrunner. And now that I am old enough to appreciate it and play, I thoroughly am enjoying it. From reading sources online the game is largely the same save for a few differences. One of them being that there are Runner and Corporation identities that you build your decks around. As writing this there is only the starter set out which has 3 Runner identities and 4 Corporation identities.

I have only played with my girlfriend, but we both really enjoy the game. Learning things can be a little bit of a challenge, but only about as much as MtG or Legend of the 5 Rings. The starter set comes with lots of cardboard tokens to track how many credits you have (bits in the original game) and if the Runner is tagged and so on.

Also it is Living Card Game, and so far there are 2 Data Packs (card packs) in the pipe line that will add more identities and new strategies to the game. Speaking of which the goal of the game is score 7 agenda points, reduce the Corp's R&D (draw deck) to nothing, kill the Runner by causing meat damage, and reducing the Runner's stack (draw deck) to nothing. But mainly you are aiming for the agenda points. The Corp has the agenda cards which the Runner makes hacking run on their servers to obtain. Corps get agenda points by advancing the agendas a certain amount.

Now to protect them the Corp sets up barriers known as Ice. Runners need Ice breakers to break through. The cool thing about the Corp is that some cards can be advanced that arent agenda cards so the can set up ambushes for the Runner. It's quite exciting and can be tense when making a run on and you don't know what lies within.

As with any FFG it all look very good. From box to the cards and tokens it all looks very good and helps make the cyberpunk feel come alive, along with all the terminology. Though with many FFG, the box could have been made to store things better. It is a minor complaint and I could use little bags to hold things, but gosh darn it I don't want to. But luckily there isn't too much to store and the bits are fine just sitting at the bottom of the box.

In conclusion, if you are fan of the original game, you shouldn't be disappointed. And if you are a fan of living card games or collectable cards games you should check it out.

Memoir 44 - Me vs Dad

Memoir 44 is a pretty rad game. It is a World War 2 strategy game that uses the Colors & Commands system. It is ridiculously simply to play.

Plus look at all that!!


They include several reference cards and that literally tells you everything you need to know to jump right in and play. Also, the box actually was made to hold everything in nice compartments. So even when all the pieces are unpacked you have places to put them where they will fit nicely and neatly. I wish more games would this this. I am looking at you FFG!

Anyway, Memoir 44 comes with a bunch of scenarios. One of them is Omaha Beach and offers rules and such on using 2 boards to get the full experience.

Not Omaha, I know

The really amazing thing about this game is the fact that despite it being very simple, it also has a good amount of tactical depth to it. The board is separated into 3 sections and board is made up of hexes. When you choose your scenario you set it up as shown in the easy to see picture using terrain hexes and place the units in their starting places. Then you wage WAR!!!!

Sword beach scenario ready to go!

You play cards to order around your various soldiers and tanks. For example there are Recon cards that might saying "Order 1 unit in the center." Then you would order perhaps an infantry unit to advance or maybe fire on an adjacent unit. There are also special cards like Infantry Assault or Barrage that allow other effects and such.

 

But it is important to not that once you use a card and make your turn, you discard that card and draw from the Command deck .

Everything is explained on the cards. Again, very simple and very fun I might add.

I got to play with my dad last night. I honestly don't spend enough time with my dad. I kind of don't know him all that much, but that's because he is the guy that kept the family fed and in a house. He travels a lot for his work. A few years ago he started working from home and that was very nice, but I was moving out as well.

Now I have a set schedule so I am trying to make more time for the important people in my life. So we played the self described introductory scenario for Memoir 44.

And it was great. Not only cause it was good game, but because it was with my dad who seemed genuinely excited when he was making an assault on Pegasus bridge and taking it or when he Ambushed my Close Assault and completely trounced me. I think out of the 8 or so games I have played of Memoir 44 I have lost 7 of them. But it was a fun game and I was glad it was with my dad.

He said he would like to play again.

 

Valhalla Rising is confusing

This blog I doubt is going to be the most relevant and posts may not be that timely, but I have Netflix and dammit I am going to use to watch movies.

So I watched Valhalla Rising. I really like medieval times, viking warriors and all that. Movies it comes hit or miss. That said I didn't really get this movie. Oh, I like samurai too.

From what I watched it wasn't trying to an action film, which is totally fine. It was boring though. The action was brutal and violent just as it should be given the characters being vikings and all. But there was just long periods of mostly nothing happening. The majority of the movie has no speaking in it. There might be some underlying theme about religion and it being able to drive people to terrible things or go mad. I am not totally sure.

But at one point some dude gets his guts pulled out. Ooooo nasty. But yeah, things happen, but at the same time nothing happens. And then about 2/3 through the movie there is a sequence where I guess everyone is going crazy for some reason, I never figured out why. A guy either dry humps or has sex with another guy in the mud, One-Eye makes a cairn and people wander around and scream. Reading the wiki they apparently all drank acid, but that wasn't apparent to me.

I wish I liked this movie.

The Walking Dead Season 3 Premiere

I warn you now. There will be spoilers. Spoilers everywhere!!!!


Yeah, it's The Walking Dead. Finally it comes out. They are finally off the farm and this episode was very good! I really liked it. Though this entry is going to be a sort of rant on the episode. No many gripes but there are a few that are stuck in my brain. Also I will mention I am a big fan of comic which I recommend you go and read as it is very very good. The series is currently on issue 102 at the time of writing this if I remember correctly. And also beware of spoilers for the comic series as well.


1) WHAT HAPPENED DURING THE WINTER!!!!!!

Apparently they made it through the winter. That's great! But also they have been scavenging the whole time, which seems kind of iffy. I can let it go that they made it through, but if they were scavenging for food and constantly on the move as it seems to be implied my suspension of disbelief begins to fall. Throughout the 2nd season they don't really come across much in the way of supplies like food and such. They are mainly getting their food and water from Hershel's farm. When the zombies all attacked they booked it out of there and didn't really take much with them from what I saw. 

So why brush over winter with "We gotz through itz, but now we are needing foodz and suppliez."

I don't know, maybe it is just me, but I would love to know how they got through winter and what all happened during that time. I would watch it fo sho! But I am watching the show anyway

2) YOU SPOILED IT AGAIN!!!!!

So AMC spoiled the ending of season 2 last time when they started their dvd sales saying it was Shane's final episode. Granted, I had read the comics and Shane was long dead by the time they left Hershel's farm, and it was fairly obvious he was going to die at some point. But you weren't sure when or how or where. It was a toss up. But AMC blew it. Shane died and then Carl killed him again.

Anyway, they basically spoiled the future episode right in the first couple seconds of the next episode preview at the end of the show.

Daryl's brother is alive and kicking. Just completely ruined the surprise. Now I did not watch much of any previews or anything to do with the 3rd season save for that they would reach the prison and The Governor would be about. That's all I knew going into it. So the whole reveal they may or may not have planned is ruined. It irks me! Irks me GOOD!!!

 Those were really my only problems. The beginning of the episode when they search the home and they are all sitting in the living room waiting for Carl to open the dog food so they can actually eat and Rick has to stop him is great. No words spoken but everything is conveyed very well.

Also Hershel went from:

To:

 And damn! He looks awesome in a beard!

In closing I have new celebrity crush on Lauren Cohan (Maggie Greene)

 

So it goes . . . Intro & X-Com

I'm Jared
I'm in a relationship
I like video game, card games, comics and just games in general.

It is tough sometimes finding people to play card or board games with. We have a pair of neighbors, but they are normally busy. Anyone who gets introduced seems to not care for them or are busy as well.

It could be though I got into the swing of gaming later in life. I am in my mid twenties and most people around my age have a lot on their plate and thus have no time for them, but I press on.

Anyway!

X-Com: Enemy Unknown came out. The above picture is of the cover of the 2nd game in the X-Com series. I am sure you can guess the title. Pretty rad series of games. The newest is no exception.

Been having a lot of fun and it brings me back to the days when games weren't holding your hand so much. You will lose soldiers and sometimes you may lose missions. Hell! You can even lose the game. A lot of that doesn't really happen in many modern games. You get plenty of checkpoints and saves and the like to make sure you succeed.

Failing sucks. But also you grow and learn from it. X-Com harkens back to that time in gaming where you had to work, sometimes hard, to reach the goal and even then it wasn't a sure bet. I remember playing Jagged Alliance 2 (great game by the way) and taking the time and care to retake the Arulco and take down the horrible dictator Deidranna. It wasn't easy, but when I finally freed the people of Arulco it was satisfying and inspiring and made my day!

That's what I feel is missing from a lot of gaming today. Specifically video games. A lot of the time it feels like you are rails, sometimes you are, and I am just going through the motions and watching events unfold without any real effect on them.

X-Com brings it back. And makes me nostalgic for older games like Baldur's Gate 2 or Dark Forces 2: Jedi Knight. Those are among my favorite games and my fondest gaming memories. I felt connected to them. I was immersed in the universe and could actually make an impact.

But for now, we are stuck with games that cost millions to make without as much soul as games that took only a handful of people to create on a paltry budget by today's standards.

                                                       One guy made this and helped create
                                                       a series of games that I lost myself
                                                       in. Having countless adventures with
                                                       stalwart comrades.