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Alien Rage Free Download
Alien Rage Free Download
Alien Rage Free Download game setup in single direct link. It's tactical shooting game where you face dangerous aliens to counter with.
Alien Rage Overview
Alien Rage is a Sci-Fi first person shooter game. It is developed under the banner of CI Games for Microsoft Windows. It was released on 24th September 2013. You can also download Evolve PC Game 2015.
This game is set on an asteroid. This asteroid is jointly mined by Aliens and Humans in order to get energy from an amazing source named as Promethium. But the aliens attack
on the human miners and kill them. After this you control the human character Jack who has to go in the mining facility and kill the aliens. Half Life is another game that you can download.
Alien Rage is a first person shooter game and you will have to fight the aliens which are of many types. Also when the level is about to end you will have to defeat a bigger enemy Boss in a fight. You can get extra points if you kill the aliens in short time or if you use special moves to kill them. When you get these points you can use them as a currency to upgrade the character's abilities and his behaviors. You can have two weapons at a time. Also the weapons are of different varieties which are made by humans as well as by alien technology. There will be assault rifles, Sniper rifles, rocket launchers and Shotguns included in this game. Multiplayer mode is also added in this game. Altogether this game is an interesting one and you will probably enjoy it. You can also download Halo Combat Evolved.
Features of Alien Rage
Following are the main features of Alien Rage that you will be able to experience after the first install on your Operating System.
- Awesome Sci-Fi first person shooter game.
- Set on an asteroid.
- Need to take the revenge from the aliens.
- Variety of weapons included.
- Multiplayer mode included.
- Can have two weapons at a time.
System Requirements of Alien Rage
Before you start Alien Rage Free Download make sure your PC meets minimum system requirements.
- Operating System: Windows XP/Vista/7/8
- CPU: 2.6GHz Intel Dual Core processor.
- RAM: 2GB
- Hard Disk Space: 4GB
Alien Rage Free Download
Click on the below button to start Alien Rage. It is full and complete game. Just download and start playing it. We have provided direct link full setup of the game.
Download Link:::Link
Size:1.65 GB
Price:Free
Virus status: scanned by Avast security
Realms Of Arkania: Blade Of Destiny: Summary And Rating
Realms of Arkania: Blade of Destiny
GermanyReleased in Germany as Das Schwarze Auge: Die Schicksalsklinge
attic Entertainment Software (developer); Fantasy Productions (German publisher); Sir-Tech (U.S. Publisher)
Released 1992 for DOS, 1993 for Amiga
Date Started: 13 November 2019
Date Ended: 7 February 2020
Total Hours: 38
Difficulty: Moderate-Hard (3.5/5)
Final Rating: (To come later)
Ranking at Time of Posting: (To come later)
Summary:
First in a lineage based on the German tabletop RPG Das Schwarze Auge, Blade of Destiny is a gem waiting to be cut and polished. A party of six, comprising familiar races but original classes, stops a horde of orcs from razing the city of Thorwal by finding a legendary sword that defeated the orcs in the past. In an effort to offer a computer game that adhered closely to tabletop rules and gaming style, Blade perhaps errs too much towards obtuse statistics, lengthy character creation and leveling, myriad spells, and exhausting tactical combat. Yet the developers managed to create a large, open game world and populate it with interesting encounters of a variety of length and difficulty, thus feeling a lot like a series of tabletop modules. Nothing in the game--first-person exploration (in Bard's Tale style, but with an interface drawn from Might and Magic III), paper-doll inventories (looking a lot like Eye of the Beholder), axonometric combat (clearly inspired by SSI), dozens of skills and spell skills--works badly, but almost every part of the game needed a little tweaking, editing, or tightening. I enjoyed it more as I became more familiar with its conventions, and it left me looking forward to its next installment.
****
I grew to enjoy Blade of Destiny more as the hour grew later (the opposite of what usually happens), although the game never really did manage to solve some of its early weaknesses. In the end, I'm struck at how much it reminds me of Pool of Radiance, the first attempt at a serious adaptation of another tabletop system. Both feature the standard party of six. In neither game do the party members have a direct, personal connection to the main quest. In both, the main quest is somewhat low-key--the fate of a city versus the fate of the world. Both keep character leveling in the single digits, and both err towards keeping faith with their tabletop roots, even when it might have been best for the computer game to improvise a bit.
I don't know whether to blame Das Schwarze Auge or the computer game for my chief complaints, most of which can be rolled up into three words: combat is exhausting. Combat is a major part of any RPG, so you don't want your players doing things like reloading to avoid it, which I did a lot. I abandoned entire dungeons because I was sick of all the fighting, so it's a good thing I didn't need an extra character level to win. The primary issues are:
- The axonometric perspective doesn't work well for combat. It's hard to separate the characters and enemies from each other and particularly hard to move to a specific tile.
- Everyone misses too often.
- Attacks don't cause enough damage.
- Spells, which would make the whole thing go faster, eat up so many magic points that you can rarely cast more than three or four before needing multiple nights' rest to recharge.
In light of these things, the "quick combat" system was a good idea. Unfortunately, combat is hard enough (at least until the end) that you can't really use it until there are only a couple enemies left. Even then, quick combat isn't really "quick." (To be fair, I guess they don't call it that; it's something like "Computer Fight.") You still have to watch the computer take all the actions and monitor your characters' status. It just means you can watch a television show at the same time.
 |
| If you can make out individual characters in those blobs, your eyesight is better than mine. |
The spell issue had more consequences than just a difficult combat experience. The developers took the time to put several dozen spells into the game, and I never used more than about 5 of them. I kept meaning to find a good place to save near a known combat and then just keep reloading and experimenting, but I never identified an ideal position for this. Most of them would have failed anyway because the nature of the spell skill system means that you can't possibly specialize in more than half a dozen. When I play the sequel, it will absolutely be my priority to more fully investigate the spell catalog.
I had a few lingering questions after the last entry, such as what happens if you try to kill the orc champion with a weapon other than Grimring, and what happens if you don't honor the rule that only your champion fights. Unfortunately, the final save prompted me to overwrite the save game I'd taken just before the battle. My next-most recent save was from before exploring the orc caves and getting the message that led to the endgame. I'm not willing to do all of that again, so we'll have to leave it a mystery unless someone has some experience with it. But I was able to check out the alternate "bad" ending, which I would have experienced had I lingered for extra year in the quest. As I typed the rest of this entry, I had my party sleep at the inn for batches of 99 days until the game woke me up with the fateful message:
Overall, I felt that the time constraint was generous enough that it wouldn't have impacted my approach even if I'd been more eager to explore every trail and sea lane. This is a good thing because there was quite a bit more to find. I took a look at a cluebook for the game, and among entire dungeons that I overlooked were a "wolf's lair" between Ottarje and Orvil, a six-level "ship of the dead" that I would have found if I'd taken more boat trips, and a three-level "dragon's hoard" on Runin Island. This latter location sounds like it would have been especially lucrative, with an option to do a side quest for the dragon and receive four magic items as a reward.
But I've always been fine with missing content. It's practically necessary in modern games, let you exhaust yourself before the end. It also enhances a game's replayability. It's nice to see the number of titles with such optional content growing.
Let's give it the ol' GIMLET:
1. Game World. I didn't find the Nordic setting terribly original, but I enjoyed it just the same. The backstory is set up well, and as previously mentioned, I liked the low-key nature of the main plot. The main quest did a good job encouraging nonlinear exploration of the large world. The problem is that the game itself doesn't quite deliver on the backstory (or the tabletop setting in general). The various cities and towns are too interchangeable, the NPCs too bland. Score: 5.
2. Character Creation and Development. Well, I can't complain that it doesn't give you enough options. The leveling-up process in Blade of Destiny is probably the longest in any game to date. Not just longest, but most frustrating, with the caps on the number of times you can increase a particular skill per level (even if you neglected it in the early levels) and frequent failures as you try to increase. The caps in particular make it feel like the characters are never really getting stronger or better. (I think the final battle could be won by a Level 1 character.) Hit points and spell points, in particular, are almost imperceptibly slow to increase.
Still, I like the nature of character classes in the setting, including the use of "negative attributes" and the plethora of skills. I just wish I had a clearer sense of what skills, attributes, and negative attributes came into play in what circumstances, which bits of equipment compensated for them, and so on. The game text is obtuse enough that sometimes it's not even clear whether you succeeded or failed. When it is, it's almost always because you failed. Honestly, how high do I need to jack up my "Treat Wounds" skill before it has a greater than 50% chance of not making the character worse?
Back on the positive side, I think different party compositions would make a considerable difference in gameplay. I think you could have fun with some interesting combinations, like an all-dwarf party or an all-magician party. It's just too bad the different race/class templates didn't have more role-playing implications. Score: 5.
3. NPC Interaction. This was a really wasted area of the game. The developers give you the ability to talk to ever bartender, innkeeper, smith, and cashier, but most of the dialogue is stupid when it isn't confusing. I'd blame the translation, but my German readers report that it was stupid and confusing even in German. The few dialogue options are either false options that lead to the same outcome or confusing ones with counter-intuitive results (e.g., asking to see the map makes the NPC give it to you; asking for the map makes him just show it to you). That said, you occasionally get an important hint from your various NPC interactions. I just wish it had been more consistent and that the developers had used the system to give more blood to the game world. Score: 4.
4. Encounters and Foes. The game shines, though sometimes with a marred finish, in this area. I really enjoyed the variety of encounters, some fixed, some random, that the party gets on the road and as it explores dungeons and towns. I like that some of them are a single screen, resolved instantly, and others lead you off on a multi-hour digression. I contrast to the dialogue, the text of these special encounters is usually evocative and interesting, and I can even forgive the occasional shaggy dog joke like the "wyvern" encounter. I just wish for a few more role-playing options in these encounters.
Foes were mostly high-fantasy standards with similar strengths and weaknesses that we've seen in a thousand RPGs but at least they appeared in appropriate contexts. We've come a long way from the days when we were inexplicably attacked by parties of 6 orcs, 3 trolls, 2 magicians, and a griffon right in the middle of town. Score: 6.
5. Magic and Combat. Very mixed. I like the combat options, the variety of spells, and the turn-based mechanics. I just didn't like the execution, which was partly due to interface and partly due to the game rules. Either way, combat was generally a tedious, annoying process rather than the joyful one I typically find in, say, a Gold Box game. As for spells, the game really needs some in-game help to assist with them, perhaps annotating the spells in which each class is supposed to specialize. Every spellcasting session and every level-up was a long process of flipping through the manual. It's too bad because the spells are so varied and interesting on paper. Score: 4.
6. Equipment. Another disappointment. I like the approach to equipment, with a number of slots, but you get upgrades rarely and it's extremely hard to identify them when you do. This is something that perhaps no game has done very well up to this point. I don't mind if it's hard to identify a piece of equipment--if you need a special skill, or spell, or money, or whatever--but I mind if it's annoying. I mind if I have to swap the item around to multiple characters to try different things, especially when the interface makes swapping annoying and time-consuming. I mind when there's no symbol, color, or other mechanism to distinguish weapons and armor with different values.
Blade offers perhaps the largest variety of "adventure" equipment that we've seen so far, which makes it all the more frustrating that either so much of it is useless, or the game doesn't bother to tell you when a piece of equipment has saved the day. Finally the encumbrance system is geared towards making most characters chronically over-encumbered. The ability to make potions is nice, but again the system is a little too complicated. Score: 4.
7. Economy. Blade almost perfectly emulates the Gold Box series here: money is plentiful from the first dungeon and you hardly have any reason to spend it. My party ended the game with well over 1,000 ducats. Even potions don't serve as a good "money sink" because they don't stack and you have the constant encumbrance issue. A rack of +1 weapons, the ability to pay to recharge spell points, or temple blessings that actually did something all would have been nice. Score: 3.
8. Quests. Generally positive. Blade is one of the few games of the era to understand side quests, and they sit alongside an interesting-enough main quest with multiple stages. It just needed a few more choices and alternate endings. Score: 5.
9. Graphics, Sound, and Interface. I know that some readers will defend the game here, but I found all three to be somewhat horrid. Graphics are perhaps the least so. Some of the cut scenes are nice. Regular exploration graphics aren't bad, but the inability to distinguish stores from regular houses is almost unforgivable. Combat graphics are a confusing mess from the axonometric perspective. Any virtues the sound effects may otherwise have are obscured by the jarring three-note cacophony that accompanies opening any menu. And there's no excuse for the interface, which occasionally gives some nods to the keyboard but really wants you to use the mouse throughout.
Aside from my usual complaints about mouse-driven interfaces, the game is full of all kinds of little annoyances. When you find or purchase a piece of equipment, it always goes to the first character. You've got to then go in and redistribute it. It's annoying to transfer equipment between characters, especially if one is over-encumbered. Messages often time out before you're done reading them, or pop up so quickly that you don't have time to read them before you accidentally hit the next movement key, making them disappear. There's a lot of inconsistency, particularly in dungeons, about when you need a contextual menu and when you need to use the buttons on the main interface. There are dozens of other things like this. The developers took the appearance of the Might and Magic III interface but none of its underlying grace.
The auto-map didn't suck. I'll give it that. Score: 2.
10. Gameplay. We can end on a positive note. This is one of the few open-world games of the era, and in between the opening screen and closing combat, it's almost entirely non-linear. The many things that a first-time player doesn't find makes it inherently replayable. And the length and difficulty are just about perfect for the era. I particularly love that you have to lose experience points to save (except at temples), which discourages save-scumming. Score: 8.
That gives us a subtotal final score of 46, a respectable total that would put it in the top 15% of games so far. But I'm going to administratively remove 2 more points for an issue that really isn't covered by my GIMLET: a lack of editing that created unnecessary confusion at numerous points in the game. There are numerous places that go unused, such as the tower and "Ottaskins" in Thorwal. NPCs frequently tell you things in dialogue that aren't true. There are numerous false leads on the map quest, and I don't think they're there to challenge you--I think the developers changed things and didn't update the dialogue. All of the NPCs in Phexcaer were clearly written for an earlier game in which the nature of the backstory and quest were quite different. It's common now, but relatively uncommon back then, to find a game released in what was clearly it's "beta" stage.
So that gives us a final score of 44, which still puts the game in the top 15%. It had a lot of promise, and I'm sorry that the developers didn't find more time to tweak and tighten it.
I had a few lingering questions after the last entry, such as what happens if you try to kill the orc champion with a weapon other than Grimring, and what happens if you don't honor the rule that only your champion fights. Unfortunately, the final save prompted me to overwrite the save game I'd taken just before the battle. My next-most recent save was from before exploring the orc caves and getting the message that led to the endgame. I'm not willing to do all of that again, so we'll have to leave it a mystery unless someone has some experience with it. But I was able to check out the alternate "bad" ending, which I would have experienced had I lingered for extra year in the quest. As I typed the rest of this entry, I had my party sleep at the inn for batches of 99 days until the game woke me up with the fateful message:
 |
| So the orcs are the "Vikings" of this setting. |
Overall, I felt that the time constraint was generous enough that it wouldn't have impacted my approach even if I'd been more eager to explore every trail and sea lane. This is a good thing because there was quite a bit more to find. I took a look at a cluebook for the game, and among entire dungeons that I overlooked were a "wolf's lair" between Ottarje and Orvil, a six-level "ship of the dead" that I would have found if I'd taken more boat trips, and a three-level "dragon's hoard" on Runin Island. This latter location sounds like it would have been especially lucrative, with an option to do a side quest for the dragon and receive four magic items as a reward.
But I've always been fine with missing content. It's practically necessary in modern games, let you exhaust yourself before the end. It also enhances a game's replayability. It's nice to see the number of titles with such optional content growing.
Let's give it the ol' GIMLET:
1. Game World. I didn't find the Nordic setting terribly original, but I enjoyed it just the same. The backstory is set up well, and as previously mentioned, I liked the low-key nature of the main plot. The main quest did a good job encouraging nonlinear exploration of the large world. The problem is that the game itself doesn't quite deliver on the backstory (or the tabletop setting in general). The various cities and towns are too interchangeable, the NPCs too bland. Score: 5.
2. Character Creation and Development. Well, I can't complain that it doesn't give you enough options. The leveling-up process in Blade of Destiny is probably the longest in any game to date. Not just longest, but most frustrating, with the caps on the number of times you can increase a particular skill per level (even if you neglected it in the early levels) and frequent failures as you try to increase. The caps in particular make it feel like the characters are never really getting stronger or better. (I think the final battle could be won by a Level 1 character.) Hit points and spell points, in particular, are almost imperceptibly slow to increase.
 |
| No, not now! I have an appointment in 90 minutes! |
Still, I like the nature of character classes in the setting, including the use of "negative attributes" and the plethora of skills. I just wish I had a clearer sense of what skills, attributes, and negative attributes came into play in what circumstances, which bits of equipment compensated for them, and so on. The game text is obtuse enough that sometimes it's not even clear whether you succeeded or failed. When it is, it's almost always because you failed. Honestly, how high do I need to jack up my "Treat Wounds" skill before it has a greater than 50% chance of not making the character worse?
Back on the positive side, I think different party compositions would make a considerable difference in gameplay. I think you could have fun with some interesting combinations, like an all-dwarf party or an all-magician party. It's just too bad the different race/class templates didn't have more role-playing implications. Score: 5.
3. NPC Interaction. This was a really wasted area of the game. The developers give you the ability to talk to ever bartender, innkeeper, smith, and cashier, but most of the dialogue is stupid when it isn't confusing. I'd blame the translation, but my German readers report that it was stupid and confusing even in German. The few dialogue options are either false options that lead to the same outcome or confusing ones with counter-intuitive results (e.g., asking to see the map makes the NPC give it to you; asking for the map makes him just show it to you). That said, you occasionally get an important hint from your various NPC interactions. I just wish it had been more consistent and that the developers had used the system to give more blood to the game world. Score: 4.
 |
| This conversation made no sense as a whole, and these individual responses made no sense in detail. |
4. Encounters and Foes. The game shines, though sometimes with a marred finish, in this area. I really enjoyed the variety of encounters, some fixed, some random, that the party gets on the road and as it explores dungeons and towns. I like that some of them are a single screen, resolved instantly, and others lead you off on a multi-hour digression. I contrast to the dialogue, the text of these special encounters is usually evocative and interesting, and I can even forgive the occasional shaggy dog joke like the "wyvern" encounter. I just wish for a few more role-playing options in these encounters.
 |
| These diversions and side areas never stopped being fun. |
Foes were mostly high-fantasy standards with similar strengths and weaknesses that we've seen in a thousand RPGs but at least they appeared in appropriate contexts. We've come a long way from the days when we were inexplicably attacked by parties of 6 orcs, 3 trolls, 2 magicians, and a griffon right in the middle of town. Score: 6.
5. Magic and Combat. Very mixed. I like the combat options, the variety of spells, and the turn-based mechanics. I just didn't like the execution, which was partly due to interface and partly due to the game rules. Either way, combat was generally a tedious, annoying process rather than the joyful one I typically find in, say, a Gold Box game. As for spells, the game really needs some in-game help to assist with them, perhaps annotating the spells in which each class is supposed to specialize. Every spellcasting session and every level-up was a long process of flipping through the manual. It's too bad because the spells are so varied and interesting on paper. Score: 4.
 |
| I only ever tried about 6 of these spells, which coincidentally is the number of spells I got above 0 in my ability to cast after 5 levels. |
6. Equipment. Another disappointment. I like the approach to equipment, with a number of slots, but you get upgrades rarely and it's extremely hard to identify them when you do. This is something that perhaps no game has done very well up to this point. I don't mind if it's hard to identify a piece of equipment--if you need a special skill, or spell, or money, or whatever--but I mind if it's annoying. I mind if I have to swap the item around to multiple characters to try different things, especially when the interface makes swapping annoying and time-consuming. I mind when there's no symbol, color, or other mechanism to distinguish weapons and armor with different values.
Blade offers perhaps the largest variety of "adventure" equipment that we've seen so far, which makes it all the more frustrating that either so much of it is useless, or the game doesn't bother to tell you when a piece of equipment has saved the day. Finally the encumbrance system is geared towards making most characters chronically over-encumbered. The ability to make potions is nice, but again the system is a little too complicated. Score: 4.
7. Economy. Blade almost perfectly emulates the Gold Box series here: money is plentiful from the first dungeon and you hardly have any reason to spend it. My party ended the game with well over 1,000 ducats. Even potions don't serve as a good "money sink" because they don't stack and you have the constant encumbrance issue. A rack of +1 weapons, the ability to pay to recharge spell points, or temple blessings that actually did something all would have been nice. Score: 3.
 |
| I just donated 999 crowns! |
8. Quests. Generally positive. Blade is one of the few games of the era to understand side quests, and they sit alongside an interesting-enough main quest with multiple stages. It just needed a few more choices and alternate endings. Score: 5.
9. Graphics, Sound, and Interface. I know that some readers will defend the game here, but I found all three to be somewhat horrid. Graphics are perhaps the least so. Some of the cut scenes are nice. Regular exploration graphics aren't bad, but the inability to distinguish stores from regular houses is almost unforgivable. Combat graphics are a confusing mess from the axonometric perspective. Any virtues the sound effects may otherwise have are obscured by the jarring three-note cacophony that accompanies opening any menu. And there's no excuse for the interface, which occasionally gives some nods to the keyboard but really wants you to use the mouse throughout.
Aside from my usual complaints about mouse-driven interfaces, the game is full of all kinds of little annoyances. When you find or purchase a piece of equipment, it always goes to the first character. You've got to then go in and redistribute it. It's annoying to transfer equipment between characters, especially if one is over-encumbered. Messages often time out before you're done reading them, or pop up so quickly that you don't have time to read them before you accidentally hit the next movement key, making them disappear. There's a lot of inconsistency, particularly in dungeons, about when you need a contextual menu and when you need to use the buttons on the main interface. There are dozens of other things like this. The developers took the appearance of the Might and Magic III interface but none of its underlying grace.
The auto-map didn't suck. I'll give it that. Score: 2.
10. Gameplay. We can end on a positive note. This is one of the few open-world games of the era, and in between the opening screen and closing combat, it's almost entirely non-linear. The many things that a first-time player doesn't find makes it inherently replayable. And the length and difficulty are just about perfect for the era. I particularly love that you have to lose experience points to save (except at temples), which discourages save-scumming. Score: 8.
 |
| This NPC seems to think he's living hundreds of years in the past. |
That gives us a subtotal final score of 46, a respectable total that would put it in the top 15% of games so far. But I'm going to administratively remove 2 more points for an issue that really isn't covered by my GIMLET: a lack of editing that created unnecessary confusion at numerous points in the game. There are numerous places that go unused, such as the tower and "Ottaskins" in Thorwal. NPCs frequently tell you things in dialogue that aren't true. There are numerous false leads on the map quest, and I don't think they're there to challenge you--I think the developers changed things and didn't update the dialogue. All of the NPCs in Phexcaer were clearly written for an earlier game in which the nature of the backstory and quest were quite different. It's common now, but relatively uncommon back then, to find a game released in what was clearly it's "beta" stage.
So that gives us a final score of 44, which still puts the game in the top 15%. It had a lot of promise, and I'm sorry that the developers didn't find more time to tweak and tighten it.
 |
| This is not the sort of game for which you really want to emphasize "conversation." |
Blade of Destiny wasn't released in the United States until 1993, so Scorpia didn't take it on until the October 1993 issue of Computer Gaming World. It's one of her more ornery reviews. After saying that the English translation of Das Schwarze Auge, "The Black Eye," "might be appropriate," she goes on to spoil the entire plot in the next paragraph, including the one-on-one combat at the end. She found the plot unoriginal and wasted three days trying to figure out how to find the orc cave, noting that there are no clues to be found anywhere. (Remember: I had to use a walkthrough for this.) She hated the failures when trying to level up, complaining that one of her fighters "made no advance in swords on two successive level gains." She noted a lot of discrepancies between the manual and actual gameplay, particularly in the area of spells, and she agrees with me that combat is a "tedious, frustrating, boring, long-drawn-out affair."
She liked the automap, the ability to reload in the middle of combat, and the extra experience you get the first time you face a particular monster. That was about it. I was surprised to see how much she hated the experience cost for saving. She says she wouldn't have minded if the creators had awarded a bonus for not saving, apparently seeing a difference there that I don't.
But her worst vitriol was for a bug that I didn't experience: apparently, if you quit in the middle of the final battle, you get the victory screen anyway. "This is not just a scam; it is the Grand Canyon of scams," she sputters. "How did the 20+ playtesters manage to miss this one? If they didn't miss it, why wasn't it fixed?" In summary:
Those who worship at the mythical altar of Realism often end up sacrificing fun and playability on it. That is what happened with Blade of Destiny. In their attempt to make the game "like real life" (something few players want in the first place) the designers went overboard in the wrong direction more than once. I would not recommend Arkania to any game player, but I do recommend it to game designers as an example of what to avoid in their own products. Let us all hope we don't see another one like this any time soon.
Ouch. I don't disagree with the elements she didn't like, but I found more that I did like.
On the continent, the game had polarized reviews. Some thought that the designers went overboard in the right direction, or perhaps didn't go overboard, or perhaps only did it once. Whatever the case, the ASM reviewer (92/100) said that he'd "rarely seen a perfect implementation of an RPG that also remains really playable on the computer." PC Joker (90/100) said that it is "only surpassed by Ultima, leaving the rest of the genre competition far behind in terms of freedom of action and complexity." But not all German reviews were positive. PC Player (48/100) recommended that players "close your eyes, put the lid on, and wait for Star Trail."
(At least there were some positives in the reviews for the original game. A 2013 remake by German-based Crafty Studios came out to almost universally negative reviews despite improved graphics, voiced dialogue, and other trappings of the modern era. It was apparently quite unforgivably bugged. Crafty went on to remake Star Trail in 2017.)
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| Combat in the remake. At least you can identify the squares a bit easier. |
The original game sold well despite a few bad reviews and certainly justified the two sequels, Realms of Arkania: Star Trail (1994) and Realms of Arkania: Shadows over Riva (1996). Together, the trilogy established the viability of Das Schwarze Auge setting, which continues to produce RPGs into the modern era, including The Dark Eye: Drakensang (2008), Deminicon (2013), and Blackguards (2014). Lead developer Guido Henkel would eventually tire of the setting, quit attic, move to the United States, join Black Isle studios, and produce Planescape: Torment.
I haven't attempted to reach out to Henkel, as his work on the Arkania series has been well-documented elsewhere. In his 2012 RPG Codex interview, he explains that the publisher of attic's Spirit of Adventure, StarByte, originally approached the company about creating a series based on Das Schwarze Auge, claiming they already had the rights. The attic personnel were reluctant to work with StarByte after a dreadful Spirit experience ("a horribly crooked company that cheated us and all of its other developers"), so they were delighted to find that the company had been lying about the license. attic managed to get it for themselves, although at such an expense that the three Arkania games barely made a profit despite selling well.
*****
B.A.T. II will be coming up next. For the next title on the "upcoming" list, we reach back to 1981 for Quest for Power, later renamed King Arthur's Heir. Come to think of it, the Crystalware titles are so similar and quick that I might try to cover Quest for Power and Sands of Mars in a single session so I can be done with 1981 entirely. Again.
Recent Gaming -- Online
In the past, I've spent a little time playing online versions of board games, from Puerto Rico on Brettspielwelt.de to Vinci on boiteajeux.net, to Magic: the Gathering on MTG online, but I usually lose interest after a while. I much prefer irl board gaming, face to face with real people.
I recently posted that my game Eminent Domain is available for free online play at BoardGameArena.com, and that I'd been exploring some of online boardgames that site has to offer:
I recently posted that my game Eminent Domain is available for free online play at BoardGameArena.com, and that I'd been exploring some of online boardgames that site has to offer:
Well, I've been continuing to play games online -- my current makes that much more viable than getting to a live game night. I mostly play 2p games late at night with my friend Steve. I like 2p best, since otherwise it can take a frustratingly long time for my turn to roll around, and I will have forgotten what was going on in the game.
Games I've been playing since my last post include:
- Caylus - an old favorite, still a great game, but not a very modern feeling one
- Hawaii - a neat game I'd played once before, a long time ago
- In the Year of the Dragon - one of my all time favorite games. 2p is weird because turn order can be such a big deal
- Penny Press - a neat auction sort of game, but feels a bit one dimensional (after only 1 play)
- Ponte de Diavolo - an abstract game that it turns out I'd played before, but forgotten. Not my type of game
- Race for the Galaxy - I haven't played much RftG irl since EmDo became a thing. It's a solid game, and I like 2p better than multiplayer because I feel like playing 2 cards at a time gives me more agency and feels more fun
- Seasons - a decent card combo-y game, but one I got a little bored with after a handful of plays
- Signorie - a "heavy"-ish game that got good buzz. It's OK, I guess, but I really didn't feel like there were different approaches like there appeared to be
- Takenoko - a very nice, very fun game by Antoine Bauza. Works well with 2, and didn't really seem to get old
- Tokaido - another very pleasant, very good game by Antoine Bauza. 2p has a neutral pawn that the player farthest ahead gets to control, which is a really neat aspect. The game is great, but many of the player powers seem lackluster (at least in 2p) because they're so narrow and easily blocked. Still a great game though!
- Tash Kalar - a largely abstract game, which is usually not my thing, but this one is pretty interesting. Cool how the scoring goals (Tasks) are what's important more than simply placing pieces and taking opposing pieces (Nexus Ops had some of that going on, and I guess Twilight Imperium did too)
And I've started a game of The Castles of Burgundy on boiteajeux.net with Steve. I like that game, but when I play it in real life I feel like it takes too long. I'd REALLY like the game if it only took an hour, but it consistently takes 2 hours when playing with 4 players. So maybe it's better online? So far, yes and no. It's nice to log in, think about your turn, and do it... but it's real easy for me to ignore my opponent and play solitaire that way, which has hurt me in this game. Also, just like irl, the game has the dice luck that can really be annoying sometimes.
I'm having a lot of fun playing these games online, though it'll never be as good as playing in real life. It's especially fun to play and chat in real time, though with my schedule I can never commit to actual real time games, just turn based ones where we take our turns in quick succession for a while.
Movie Reviews: Star Wars 8: The Last Jedi (Spoilers), Battle Of The Sexes, Wonder, Coco
See all of my movie reviews.
Battle of the Sexes: It feels like forever since I've seen a movie with real, engaging three-dimensional characters, instead of the one or zero dimensional characters you get in Disney and Marvel movies.
The story starts with some background on Bobby Riggs and Billie Jean King. Riggs is an older former champion tennis player, a sexist but talented socialite, who is having difficulty with his family and looking for a new challenge. King is young and at or near the top in women's tennis, but disgusted that, while women's tennis draws the same ticket sales, the athletes get paid 1/8 what the men do, "because". So she starts her own league. Riggs challenges King to a battle of the sexes.
Battle of the Sexes: It feels like forever since I've seen a movie with real, engaging three-dimensional characters, instead of the one or zero dimensional characters you get in Disney and Marvel movies.
The story starts with some background on Bobby Riggs and Billie Jean King. Riggs is an older former champion tennis player, a sexist but talented socialite, who is having difficulty with his family and looking for a new challenge. King is young and at or near the top in women's tennis, but disgusted that, while women's tennis draws the same ticket sales, the athletes get paid 1/8 what the men do, "because". So she starts her own league. Riggs challenges King to a battle of the sexes.
The trailers for this movie made it seem like Steve Carrell's Bobby Riggs was going to be a caricature of the real Riggs (who was certainly flamboyant). Thank goodness, Carrell, and his screenwriter and director, do a fantastic job in giving us a fully-fledged person that we can care about, even as he is, essentially, the bad guy. So, sucky trailer. Emma Stone does an equally fantastic job as Billie Jean King, as do several of the accessory and side characters, who are fleshed out in full glory (or at least as much as their screen-time allows).
The story lingered perhaps a little too long here and there on some scenes, like the initial haircut scene where she falls for her hairdresser (Carol did a better job with its similar love at first meeting scene). And maybe a little more time could have been added to the story to make it feel like a real epic. But never mind. This was a fun, fine, and satisfying movie to watch.
Wonder: From the trailer I wasn't expecting much for this movie, and in fact wasn't planning to see it at all. It seemed like a straightforward movie about a disfigured boy (Jacob Tremblay) being bullied in school, making and losing friends, and ultimately triumphing. Ho hum. So, once again, sucky, sucky trailer.
That story is, indeed, the backbone of the movie, taking up around 50% of the screen-time; if it was all there was to the movie, the movie would be as expected: not bad, but ultimately nothing special and predictable. But the movie spends the other 50% of its screen-time telling other people's stories, sometimes rolling back the same scene multiple times to view it from different points of view. We spend a lot of time with the sister, but also the mother, the sister's friend, the sister's boyfriend, and two other kids in the boy's class. And all of those stories are better and more original than the main storyline, making the movie so much more than just a story about a bulled boy.
The story is screenwritten by Steve Chbotsky (based on a book by RJ Palacio), the same screenwriter and author of The Perks of Being a Wallflower. I saw and loved that movie and wanted to read the book afterwards. The same thing happened with this movie: the movie is good, but you can see the left-out parts of the book peeking about here and there, and you really want to get more into depth with the characters.
Yes, the story is still a bit of a tearjerker, sentimental and emotional, but it is also narratively creative with some interesting, less predictable characters and story arcs. The main, predictable arc (basically told in the trailer) is raised up by being interwoven with the other stories, although it, too should have been better. Well worth a see, especially for kids and teens. Note: Chewbacca is in the movie, which makes it a candidate as an entry in the Star Wars canon, in my opinion.
Coco: Coco follows in the tradition of Moana, Brave, and Mulan in presenting not only a story of a hero's journey but a journey that is kickstarted, guided, and resolved in consonance with the literalization of a non-American cultural mythology. And I don't know how I feel about that.
A Mexican boy's (Manuel) family refuses to have anything to do with music because the great-grandfather ran off to become a musician, leaving his wife and child to fend for themselves. Naturally, Manuel wants to be a musician. It is the Day of the Dead, where everyone puts up pictures to the dead in order for the dead spirits to be able to (spiritually) visit, but of course a) there is no picture of the great-grandfather and b) Manuel doesn't want to have anything to do with his family. Manuel's idol is a famous musician, and Manuel learns, by accident, that this famous musician was, in fact, his great-grandfather. To compete in a music contest, Manuel steals a guitar from this musician's shrine and finds himself cursed into the land of the dead. Who are happily visiting the relatives who have posted pictures for them. The ones whose families have not posted pictures of them are unhappy. Manuel needs his dead family's blessing to get back to the real world, but they won't give it to him unless he promises not to pursue music. So he runs off to find the spirit of his great-grandfather.
Many of the themes, including the central theme, are reminiscent of the ones in the other movies I mentioned, and the movie also borrows some narrative elements from Up. It has a lot of "learning moments", which are familiar, and a few nice musical scenes. It leans heavy on appreciating your cultural heritage, by turning mythological aspects into real ones.
Which I find kind of bothersome. When mythology becomes fact, it is no longer a question of faith or practice or choice. While in real life there is no easy answer as to whether choosing to honor or not your dead ancestors makes you a good or bad person, movies like this imply that you have no choice not to believe in your family's traditional stories: If you don't, you are murdering or causing tremendous pain to actual beings who walk, talk, and feel exactly like any other living beings do. I'm not comfortable with that message. A mature individual recognizes that what we do to honor the dead and our traditions has nothing to do with the dead, but is about ourselves, our families, and our communities. Coco is aimed at children, sure, and this is just a children's story. But I thought that this movie was supposed to be sensitive to the cultures it was representing, not trivializing to them. You can't really have it both ways.
There are no glaring flaws with the movie, although a Mexican family rejecting all music for several generations seems a bit of a stretch. The movie is filled with pretty art, colors, and architecture which I presume represent both historical and modern Mexican culture. I'm not sure that modern children will appreciate the music, except the few numbers that are obviously meant to appeal to them. I'm not sure in what time period the movie is supposed to be; it must be modern, but no one has cellphones or computers. Is that normal for a modern, large Mexican town? Anyway, I liked it more than I did Moana, which I found derivative and boring. I'm sure that kids will enjoy it.
Star Wars 8: The Last Jedi: Star Wars once had something that was different from other sci-fi movies and worlds, something precious and important. Unfortunately, the makers of the current movies don't see that. Instead of making Star Wars movies, they are making modern sci-fi movies indistinguishable from other modern sci fi movies, with the iconography of Star Wars. Which is very painful to me. Chris Bateman bemoaned something similar after watching the Star Trek reboot, and I didn't get it, then. I think I get it now.
Update: see the end for thoughts after a second viewing.
The new Star Trek movies, the X-Men movies, the Marvel movies, the Ghost in the Shell remake, the Blade Runner movie, Looper, Valerian, Avatar, DC's movies, and many other sci-fi movies in the last 10 or 15 years have a vast similarity to each other, in much the same way that all modern Disney, Pixar, and other American animated children's movie have vast similarities to each other. They may have different writers, directors, and casts, but they are all, essentially, dumbed down. The creators of these movies avoid complex messages, plots, and themes, throw in snarky slapstick between action sequences, fill the screen with copious action sequences at nearly the same points in the movie, present emotions and dialog that is one-dimensional and transparently representative of the characters, and hammer you with neat and simplistic moral messages in their denouements that are understandable and suitable for a 4 year old. Family is good. Be brave. Be true to yourself. Be loving to creatures, the natives, and the environment.
Star Wars 4-6 and 1-3 were not like that, at all. Well, okay, they often had one-dimensional emotions and dialog, but otherwise. Star Wars did not have tons of snarky dialog, except for Leia, and hers was not slapstick snark but a very specific kind of frustration snark. A Star Wars movie took itself seriously, because the movie was about space opera and adventure, not about instant entertainment. The message about choosing the good side of the force was given, not saved as a discovery for the end of the movie. The dark side of the force and the light side of the force were about our moral choices: people could contain both of these powers, but choosing light meant - by definition - choosing good, while choosing dark meant choosing to be selfish, and therefore evil. People could be ambiguous, but there were clear moral choices. Heroism was heroism: choose good and act on it. Every movie felt like it was part of a world that extended well before and after the movie: what you were seeing was a small part of a great epic, because the movie took time to show and make you feel time passing: Luke's daily routine on the farm represented years, his efforts on Dagobah months. The force presented an exploration of mysticism, not just firepower or "lifting rocks". The movies were NOT just sci fi movies with cool weapons and critters; they were NOT Guardians of the Galaxy, which is a close movie in structure, but just as far in feel as all the others.
The came The Force Awakens. The Force Awakens struck an iffy balance between Star Wars ala Lucas and modern sci fi movies. It felt, at times, too much like a Marvel movie. It was missing a lot of the feel of the Star Wars epic and the mysticism, it felt less like an epic and more like a sequence of events. But the characters, especially Rey, were compelling and the structure was well done, so I had hope it might move in the right direction after the makers received feedback from the fans.
Here be some spoilers, but nothing major.
This movie felt like a Star Trek movie with bits of Star Wars thrown onto it. For the first 25 minutes of the movie, I was in pain, holding my head in my hands aghast at the vast empty, non-Star Wars feel to the movie. Then we got to Rey and Luke, and it was filled with snarky scenes that were supposed to be funny, and I felt my stomach drop. It was supposed to be funny that Luke casually tossed the light saber over his shoulder? Really? It wasn't funny AT ALL, not only because it wasn't funny, but because it wasn't what Luke would do, even if he were disgusted by the force and everything it stood for. He would throw it away in disgust, perhaps, or at least show some emotional acknowledgement that this was his saber he had lost. Or ask some questions of Rey. Anything! The scene was a disaster, and I began to get a headache.
The main part of the movie is dull, with an hour long chase scene where nothing of consequence happens. Poe and Finn basically accomplish nothing in the entire movie. Instead, the entire enterprise of heroism is called into question, because, as one character puts it, we don't kill what we hate, we save what we love? What??? So heroes aren't heroes? It is implied not only that people can have both dark and light in them, but that dark isn't maybe so evil and light ins't maybe so good! What??? That destroys the entire freakin' metaphor! I don't want another vague morality movie that tells me that morality is relative. I don't want a treatise on how heroes aren't heroes, because they should follow orders. And I don't need a new lecture on how both sides are just as bad, and another on how we shouldn't treat animals badly (seriously, the movie took about twenty minutes of run time to tell us this).
The scene on the casino was a phenomenal waste of time; maybe it was supposed to be funny, but it wasn't, and it wasn't Star Wars funny. Even the pod race in TPM made more sense and had more meaning than this. And then we have a scene with Ren gratuitously without his shirt, a callback to the underwear scene in Star Trek Into Darkness. The whole movie takes place over what? Three days? So no story development. Please repeat after me: a character learning something isn't character development. It's just learning. Marvel characters learn things, too, but that doesn't make them less cartoonish. Development takes introspection, depth, complexity, time, and sensitivity.
So yeah, I had problems. Not only in the first 25 minutes, but many times after.
However .... admittedly after the first 25 minutes, some of the scenes were really great, and even really Star Wars great. The Rey-before-Snope and the lightsaber battle afterwards were beautiful, because of the shifting nature of the alliance and the confusion that the characters felt in the process. And the battle over the salt fields with the red plumes were a beautiful thing to see. I liked the dynamic between Ren and Rey, and the Luke and Ren scene, too. I liked Rose, but I didn't like most of the scenes she was in. I hated the multiple BB-ex-machina scenes, even more than I disliked the C3PO nuisance scenes in ESB.
Seen from the non-Star War perspective, the movie dragged in several scenes in the middle, but it was at least as entertaining as any other modern sci fi movie, and better because of the interesting characters of Rey and Ren. But I despair about the future of the franchise. With the exception of certain threads and scenes, these are not Star Wars movies, and for that I mourn. I like these threads and scenes; I want them to be in better, far different movies.
Also ... more spoilers ...
Callbacks: So many scenes were callbacks to TESB and TRotJ: training the Jedi, including entering the "dark side" cave, Rey giving herself up to Ren to be taken before the emperor and snatching up the lightsaber, and others. The resistance flying head on into the marching first order elephant things. And, admittedly, ESB spent mosy of its time simply chasing after the Millennium Falcon.
Things I didn't have a problem with that others might: The above callbacks. The changes in the force, such as the mindlink and the projection. Yes, it's odd that previous generations of Jedi never did these things, but they seem like the kinds of things that they would do, and I'm cool with that. This includes the water actually traveling through the mindlink and that Luke projected an image was of his younger self.
Other minor problems: If this takes place only days after the last movie, how could the republic and/or first order be in any kind of different state than it was in the last one? What happened to the galaxy? Why do they keep calling them rebels, instead of the resistance? Pick one. Since when do bombs fall in space when you release them? Fall which direction? What happened to Snoke insisting on training Ren? Or Rey? What the hell was Snoke? He shows up larger than life, he seems to be stronger than the emperor, and then he just dies? Why didn't the new admiral Holdo just tell Poe what the plan was, instead of waiting until the evacuation? Why did she wait until nearly everyone was dead before light-speeding her ship into the enemy? If that's a thing, can't you rig a bunch of ships to do that and decimate your enemies more frequently
Update: Having now seen the movie a second time, my thoughts are adjusting a bit. The parts that I disliked the first time I dislike now even more: in particular the comedy and the BB8 scenes, which are as annoying as Jar Jar but take up even more screen time. There is a difference between conversational humor, which I can enjoy, and slapstick humor directed at the audience, which I don't. I'm further down on the arrangement of scenes and the pacing. I don't like any scenes with Hux. I don't like the plot about, or even the idea that, spaceships run out of fuel in this universe. I still don't like how the director taunts the audience by not paying off stories about Rey's parents, Snoke, the R2D2 map, Chewbacca's grief, and other things.
The parts that I liked before I like even more, which is also what happened to me with TFA. However, after the second viewing, I'm feeling a bit better about the neutral parts of the story. I don't LIKE the story - both the good and the bad guys throw away the past, Finn and Poe are reigned in as heroes instead of being heroic - but I'm okay with that being the story.
Coco: Coco follows in the tradition of Moana, Brave, and Mulan in presenting not only a story of a hero's journey but a journey that is kickstarted, guided, and resolved in consonance with the literalization of a non-American cultural mythology. And I don't know how I feel about that.
A Mexican boy's (Manuel) family refuses to have anything to do with music because the great-grandfather ran off to become a musician, leaving his wife and child to fend for themselves. Naturally, Manuel wants to be a musician. It is the Day of the Dead, where everyone puts up pictures to the dead in order for the dead spirits to be able to (spiritually) visit, but of course a) there is no picture of the great-grandfather and b) Manuel doesn't want to have anything to do with his family. Manuel's idol is a famous musician, and Manuel learns, by accident, that this famous musician was, in fact, his great-grandfather. To compete in a music contest, Manuel steals a guitar from this musician's shrine and finds himself cursed into the land of the dead. Who are happily visiting the relatives who have posted pictures for them. The ones whose families have not posted pictures of them are unhappy. Manuel needs his dead family's blessing to get back to the real world, but they won't give it to him unless he promises not to pursue music. So he runs off to find the spirit of his great-grandfather.
Many of the themes, including the central theme, are reminiscent of the ones in the other movies I mentioned, and the movie also borrows some narrative elements from Up. It has a lot of "learning moments", which are familiar, and a few nice musical scenes. It leans heavy on appreciating your cultural heritage, by turning mythological aspects into real ones.
Which I find kind of bothersome. When mythology becomes fact, it is no longer a question of faith or practice or choice. While in real life there is no easy answer as to whether choosing to honor or not your dead ancestors makes you a good or bad person, movies like this imply that you have no choice not to believe in your family's traditional stories: If you don't, you are murdering or causing tremendous pain to actual beings who walk, talk, and feel exactly like any other living beings do. I'm not comfortable with that message. A mature individual recognizes that what we do to honor the dead and our traditions has nothing to do with the dead, but is about ourselves, our families, and our communities. Coco is aimed at children, sure, and this is just a children's story. But I thought that this movie was supposed to be sensitive to the cultures it was representing, not trivializing to them. You can't really have it both ways.
There are no glaring flaws with the movie, although a Mexican family rejecting all music for several generations seems a bit of a stretch. The movie is filled with pretty art, colors, and architecture which I presume represent both historical and modern Mexican culture. I'm not sure that modern children will appreciate the music, except the few numbers that are obviously meant to appeal to them. I'm not sure in what time period the movie is supposed to be; it must be modern, but no one has cellphones or computers. Is that normal for a modern, large Mexican town? Anyway, I liked it more than I did Moana, which I found derivative and boring. I'm sure that kids will enjoy it.
Star Wars 8: The Last Jedi: Star Wars once had something that was different from other sci-fi movies and worlds, something precious and important. Unfortunately, the makers of the current movies don't see that. Instead of making Star Wars movies, they are making modern sci-fi movies indistinguishable from other modern sci fi movies, with the iconography of Star Wars. Which is very painful to me. Chris Bateman bemoaned something similar after watching the Star Trek reboot, and I didn't get it, then. I think I get it now.
Update: see the end for thoughts after a second viewing.
The new Star Trek movies, the X-Men movies, the Marvel movies, the Ghost in the Shell remake, the Blade Runner movie, Looper, Valerian, Avatar, DC's movies, and many other sci-fi movies in the last 10 or 15 years have a vast similarity to each other, in much the same way that all modern Disney, Pixar, and other American animated children's movie have vast similarities to each other. They may have different writers, directors, and casts, but they are all, essentially, dumbed down. The creators of these movies avoid complex messages, plots, and themes, throw in snarky slapstick between action sequences, fill the screen with copious action sequences at nearly the same points in the movie, present emotions and dialog that is one-dimensional and transparently representative of the characters, and hammer you with neat and simplistic moral messages in their denouements that are understandable and suitable for a 4 year old. Family is good. Be brave. Be true to yourself. Be loving to creatures, the natives, and the environment.
Star Wars 4-6 and 1-3 were not like that, at all. Well, okay, they often had one-dimensional emotions and dialog, but otherwise. Star Wars did not have tons of snarky dialog, except for Leia, and hers was not slapstick snark but a very specific kind of frustration snark. A Star Wars movie took itself seriously, because the movie was about space opera and adventure, not about instant entertainment. The message about choosing the good side of the force was given, not saved as a discovery for the end of the movie. The dark side of the force and the light side of the force were about our moral choices: people could contain both of these powers, but choosing light meant - by definition - choosing good, while choosing dark meant choosing to be selfish, and therefore evil. People could be ambiguous, but there were clear moral choices. Heroism was heroism: choose good and act on it. Every movie felt like it was part of a world that extended well before and after the movie: what you were seeing was a small part of a great epic, because the movie took time to show and make you feel time passing: Luke's daily routine on the farm represented years, his efforts on Dagobah months. The force presented an exploration of mysticism, not just firepower or "lifting rocks". The movies were NOT just sci fi movies with cool weapons and critters; they were NOT Guardians of the Galaxy, which is a close movie in structure, but just as far in feel as all the others.
The came The Force Awakens. The Force Awakens struck an iffy balance between Star Wars ala Lucas and modern sci fi movies. It felt, at times, too much like a Marvel movie. It was missing a lot of the feel of the Star Wars epic and the mysticism, it felt less like an epic and more like a sequence of events. But the characters, especially Rey, were compelling and the structure was well done, so I had hope it might move in the right direction after the makers received feedback from the fans.
Here be some spoilers, but nothing major.
This movie felt like a Star Trek movie with bits of Star Wars thrown onto it. For the first 25 minutes of the movie, I was in pain, holding my head in my hands aghast at the vast empty, non-Star Wars feel to the movie. Then we got to Rey and Luke, and it was filled with snarky scenes that were supposed to be funny, and I felt my stomach drop. It was supposed to be funny that Luke casually tossed the light saber over his shoulder? Really? It wasn't funny AT ALL, not only because it wasn't funny, but because it wasn't what Luke would do, even if he were disgusted by the force and everything it stood for. He would throw it away in disgust, perhaps, or at least show some emotional acknowledgement that this was his saber he had lost. Or ask some questions of Rey. Anything! The scene was a disaster, and I began to get a headache.
The main part of the movie is dull, with an hour long chase scene where nothing of consequence happens. Poe and Finn basically accomplish nothing in the entire movie. Instead, the entire enterprise of heroism is called into question, because, as one character puts it, we don't kill what we hate, we save what we love? What??? So heroes aren't heroes? It is implied not only that people can have both dark and light in them, but that dark isn't maybe so evil and light ins't maybe so good! What??? That destroys the entire freakin' metaphor! I don't want another vague morality movie that tells me that morality is relative. I don't want a treatise on how heroes aren't heroes, because they should follow orders. And I don't need a new lecture on how both sides are just as bad, and another on how we shouldn't treat animals badly (seriously, the movie took about twenty minutes of run time to tell us this).
The scene on the casino was a phenomenal waste of time; maybe it was supposed to be funny, but it wasn't, and it wasn't Star Wars funny. Even the pod race in TPM made more sense and had more meaning than this. And then we have a scene with Ren gratuitously without his shirt, a callback to the underwear scene in Star Trek Into Darkness. The whole movie takes place over what? Three days? So no story development. Please repeat after me: a character learning something isn't character development. It's just learning. Marvel characters learn things, too, but that doesn't make them less cartoonish. Development takes introspection, depth, complexity, time, and sensitivity.
So yeah, I had problems. Not only in the first 25 minutes, but many times after.
However .... admittedly after the first 25 minutes, some of the scenes were really great, and even really Star Wars great. The Rey-before-Snope and the lightsaber battle afterwards were beautiful, because of the shifting nature of the alliance and the confusion that the characters felt in the process. And the battle over the salt fields with the red plumes were a beautiful thing to see. I liked the dynamic between Ren and Rey, and the Luke and Ren scene, too. I liked Rose, but I didn't like most of the scenes she was in. I hated the multiple BB-ex-machina scenes, even more than I disliked the C3PO nuisance scenes in ESB.
Seen from the non-Star War perspective, the movie dragged in several scenes in the middle, but it was at least as entertaining as any other modern sci fi movie, and better because of the interesting characters of Rey and Ren. But I despair about the future of the franchise. With the exception of certain threads and scenes, these are not Star Wars movies, and for that I mourn. I like these threads and scenes; I want them to be in better, far different movies.
Also ... more spoilers ...
Callbacks: So many scenes were callbacks to TESB and TRotJ: training the Jedi, including entering the "dark side" cave, Rey giving herself up to Ren to be taken before the emperor and snatching up the lightsaber, and others. The resistance flying head on into the marching first order elephant things. And, admittedly, ESB spent mosy of its time simply chasing after the Millennium Falcon.
Things I didn't have a problem with that others might: The above callbacks. The changes in the force, such as the mindlink and the projection. Yes, it's odd that previous generations of Jedi never did these things, but they seem like the kinds of things that they would do, and I'm cool with that. This includes the water actually traveling through the mindlink and that Luke projected an image was of his younger self.
Other minor problems: If this takes place only days after the last movie, how could the republic and/or first order be in any kind of different state than it was in the last one? What happened to the galaxy? Why do they keep calling them rebels, instead of the resistance? Pick one. Since when do bombs fall in space when you release them? Fall which direction? What happened to Snoke insisting on training Ren? Or Rey? What the hell was Snoke? He shows up larger than life, he seems to be stronger than the emperor, and then he just dies? Why didn't the new admiral Holdo just tell Poe what the plan was, instead of waiting until the evacuation? Why did she wait until nearly everyone was dead before light-speeding her ship into the enemy? If that's a thing, can't you rig a bunch of ships to do that and decimate your enemies more frequently
Update: Having now seen the movie a second time, my thoughts are adjusting a bit. The parts that I disliked the first time I dislike now even more: in particular the comedy and the BB8 scenes, which are as annoying as Jar Jar but take up even more screen time. There is a difference between conversational humor, which I can enjoy, and slapstick humor directed at the audience, which I don't. I'm further down on the arrangement of scenes and the pacing. I don't like any scenes with Hux. I don't like the plot about, or even the idea that, spaceships run out of fuel in this universe. I still don't like how the director taunts the audience by not paying off stories about Rey's parents, Snoke, the R2D2 map, Chewbacca's grief, and other things.
The parts that I liked before I like even more, which is also what happened to me with TFA. However, after the second viewing, I'm feeling a bit better about the neutral parts of the story. I don't LIKE the story - both the good and the bad guys throw away the past, Finn and Poe are reigned in as heroes instead of being heroic - but I'm okay with that being the story.
Valfaris Review (PS4)
Written by Anthony L. Cuaycong
Developer: Steel Mantis
Publisher: Big Sugar
Genre: Action
Price: $24.99
Also Available On: Switch, Steam, XB1
Touted as a spiritual successor to the underrated Slain: Back from Hell also developed by the two-man Steel Mantis Games, Valfaris packs the heavy in heavy metal and thrives as a two-dimensional action platformer. It's a classic side scroller packed with contemporary goodness; the soundtrack successfully serves to pump up the adrenaline and helps gamers prep for swath after swath of enemies. Appropriately diverse, the latter keep coming, and their onslaught is interrupted only by the appearances of mid- and end-level bosses; they're fodder for mayhem, and provide benefits for even more mayhem by way of their loot drops.
Valfaris sets up the proceedings with a paper-thin narrative about the titular planet, whose disappearance from galactic charts and reappearance to orbit a decaying star sends lead character Therion on an adventure to find and defeat Vroll, the ruler with evil machinations who also happens to be his father. Steel Mantis Games deserves props for continually feeding the story via bits and pieces of interactions between the principal protagonist and his enemies, inhabitants of the planet, and, for the most part, Hekate, his trusty artificial-intelligence assistant.
Make no mistake, though. Valfaris' biggest come-on is its gameplay. Certainly, it makes no pretensions on its primary — okay, singular — intent. Which, creditably, it manages to deliver well. It gives gamers the standard three weapon types to use in encounters: one with infinite ammunition, but whose refresh rate leaves much to be desired; one for melee, which, for every sword swing, likewise serves to replenish an energy meter; and one that cuts through the hordes the best, but requiring, and quickly depleting, said meter to use. A shield at hand can turn defense into offense; activation shortly before an enemy projectile's impact allows for deflection and redirection.
In Valfaris, all the tools of combat are upgradable through Blood Metal, in-game currency found around the planet and gifted by downed enemies. Meanwhile, Resurrection Idols enable gamers to make use of — or, to be more precise, pay for — checkpoints or, when collected and kept, increase health and energy levels. Implicitly, the alternatives encourage rational thought and strategy to get through platforms with efficiency and purpose. Any deliberate assessment is a challenge at best in light of the sheer number of enemies to down, and made even more challenging by the absence of evasive commands.
Valfaris makes no pretensions. In fact, it proudly wears its intense difficulty in its sleeve. That said, it's no Dark Souls, and it does strive to stay fair throughout its 15-hour-or-so runtime. For good measure, Steel Mantis Games has released a patch that adds Full Metal Mode, essentially a "new game plus" option that gives gamers the pleasure of carrying over all weapons and items collected throughout a completed campaign. In other words, they're fully equipped from the get-go should they decide to relive their experience.
Admittedly, Valfaris isn't perfect, and frustration can set in. For instance, its eight-direction aiming occasionally feels inadequate, leading to crucial misses. And while constant respawns aren't new to the genre, they can make for sudden unexpected battles that render immaterial even the best-laid plans. Even boss fights aren't immune to the odds being stacked too high for comfort; a few have final, at-the-point-of-death attacks that prove the folly of close combat, not to mention minions that take attention away from the most important task at hand.
That said, Valfaris is well worth its $29.99 sticker price. Featuring retro pixel-art visuals and booming sounds that add a sense of urgency to Therion's exploits, it comes off as a polished blend of aesthetics and action designed to kee gamers coming back for more. Highly recommended.
THE GOOD:
THE BAD:
- Complementary audio-visual elements
- High on variety
- Tons of options on offer
- Extremely challenging but fair
- Full Metal Mode
THE BAD:
- Occasionally inadequate aiming
- Random respawns can lead to unexpected battles
- Cheap deaths courtesy of a few bosses with sneaky parting gifts
RATING: 8.5/10
macaristan iş ilanı
iş hayatınızda bir sonraki adımı edinebilmek amacıyla online şekilde binlerce iş ilanını bulabilirsiniz. iş ilanı bulma motoru, özgeçmişler, işletme bilgileri ve daha fazlasıyla, her adımda yanınızdayız. bu site iş olanakları ve fikirleri için en güvenilir kaynaktır. iş kaynaklarına, kişiselleştirilmiş kazanç araçlarına ve içgörülere ulaşın. İstediğiniz işi şimdi bulun! sitemiz meslek ve kariyer fırsatları için kaynağınızdır. İş arayın, sitemizin iş personellerinden iş önerisi alın ve işe alım teklifleri bulun. sitede yurt genelinde iş olanakları bulun. Meslek kategorisi, şehir, firma ve daha fazlasına göre arama yapın. Özgeçmişinizi gönderin. Başlangıç mertebesinden idare rollerine kadar Türkiyedeki tüm yeni iş ilanlarını keşfedin. İle, sektöre yada firmaya göre bulun. Kendinize uyan doğru işi bulun ve bir iş başvurusu yapın. sitemiz meslek inceleme motorunu kullanarak bölgenizde meslek personeli arayan iş ilanlarını arayın - meslek edinmenin en hızlı yöntemi. Size en yakın meslek bulmak ve sadece bir adımda başvurun. Çevrenizdeki yakın kuruluşlar yönünden gönderilen en son iş ilanlarını bulun ve inceleyin. İş inceleme sitemiz üstünden doğrudan ilan verenlerle iletişime geçin. Aşağıdaki bağlantılarla iş arama konusu için fikir alın. İnternette yüzlerce iş sayfası mevcut, fakat en etkili iş işletmeleri ve iş arama sayfaları, kullanmak yorucu olabilir, çabuk ve kolay araçlara anında ulaşın.
macaristan iş ilanı konusunda ve yurtdışı iş ilanları ile ilgili buradan bilgi alabilirsiniz. UdW0qkAj5v
macaristan iş ilanı konusunda ve yurtdışı iş ilanları ile ilgili buradan bilgi alabilirsiniz. UdW0qkAj5v
yurt dışı mobilya ustası iş ilanları
kariyerinizde bir sonraki adımı bulmak için online şekilde binlerce ilanı bulabilirsiniz. iş ilanı bulma yöntemleri, özgeçmişler, firma bilgileri ve daha fazlasıyla, her zaman sizinleyiz. bu site meslek olanakları ve önerileri için en güvenilir kaynaktır. iş kaynaklarına, kişiselleştirilmiş maaş araçlarına ve içgörülere ulaşın. Hayalinizdeki işi şimdi bulun! sitemiz meslek ve kariyer imkanları için kaynağınızdır. İş bakın, sitemizin meslek personellerinden iş önerisi alın ve işe alım teklifleri bulun. sitede yurt üzerinde iş fırsatları bulun. İş kategorisi, il - ilçe, firma ve daha fazlasına göre göz atın. CVnizi yollayın. Başlangıç mertebesinden CEO pozisyonlarına kadar yurttaki tüm yeni işleri inceleyin. İle, piyasaya yahut kuruluşa göre listeleyin. Size uygun doğru işi görün ve bir iş başvurusu yapın. sitemiz meslek inceleme motorunu kullanarak alanlarınızda iş çalışanı araştıran ilanları arayın - meslek bulmanın en iyi yöntemi. Size en yakın meslek edinebilmek ve sadece 1 adımda ulaşın. Bölgenizdeki yakın işletmeler sebebi ile eklenen en son meslek ilanlarını arayın ve inceleyin. İş bulma sitemiz üstünden doğrudan işverenlere iletişime geçin. alttaki linklerle meslek bulma konusu için fikir alın. Web de milyonlarca iş sayfası mevcut, ancak en etkili iş işletmeleri ve meslek inceleme siteleri, kullanması yorucu olabilir, çabuk ve basit yöntemlere hemen erişin.
yurt dışı mobilya ustası iş ilanları konusunda ve yurtdışı iş ilanları ile ilgili buradan bilgi alabilirsiniz. UdW0qkAj5v
yurt dışı mobilya ustası iş ilanları konusunda ve yurtdışı iş ilanları ile ilgili buradan bilgi alabilirsiniz. UdW0qkAj5v
katar iş ilanları inşaat mühendisi
iş hayatınızda bir sonraki adımı bulabilmek için online olarak binlerce ilanı bulabilirsiniz. iş ilanı bulma araçları, özgeçmişler, işletme bilgileri ve daha fazlasıyla, her süreçte sizinleyiz. bu site iş olanakları ve önerileri için en bilinen kaynaktır. iş kaynaklarına, kişiselleştirilmiş maaş araçlarına ve fikirlere erişin. İstediğiniz işi hemen bulun! sitemiz meslek ve kariyer imkanları için kaynağınızdır. İş ilanı arayın, sitemizin meslek uzmanlarından iş önerisi edinin ve işe alım önerileri bulun. sitede Türkiye üzerinde meslek olanakları arayın. İş kategorisi, şehir, firma ve daha fazlasına göre arama yapın. CVnizi yollayın. Başlangıç seviyesinden CEO rollerine kadar yurttaki bütün yeni iş ilanlarını keşfedin. Bölgeye, sektöre veya şirkete göre göz atın. Sizin için doğru işi bulun ve bir kariyer oluşturun. sitemiz iş bulma sayfasını kullanarak alanlarınızda iş elemanı arayan işleri bulun - iş bulmanın en kolay yöntemi. Size en uygun iş bulmak ve sadece bir adımda ulaşın. Bölgenizdeki bulunan işletmeler sebebi ile girilen en yeni meslek ilanlarını listeleyin ve göz atın. İş bulma sayfamız üzerinden direkt ilan sahipleriyle konuşun. Aşağıdaki bağlantılarla iş bulma konusu için fikir edinin. Web de milyonlarca meslek sayfası var, ancak en kaliteli meslek şirketleri ve iş bulma motorları, kullanması zordur, çabuk ve basit araçlara anında erişin.
katar iş ilanları inşaat mühendisi konusunda ve yurtdışı iş ilanları ile ilgili buradan bilgi alabilirsiniz. UdW0qkAj5v
katar iş ilanları inşaat mühendisi konusunda ve yurtdışı iş ilanları ile ilgili buradan bilgi alabilirsiniz. UdW0qkAj5v
avustralya iş ilanları 2017
kariyerinizde bir sonraki adımı edinebilmek için çevrimiçi olarak yüzlerce ilanı arayabilirsiniz. iş ilanı bulma motoru, cv ler, işletme incelemeleri ve daha fazlasıyla, her zaman yanınızdayız. bu site iş olanakları ve fikirleri için en bilindik kaynaktır. iş kaynaklarına, kişiselleştirilmiş kazanç araçlarına ve içgörülere ulaşın. Hayalinizdeki işi şimdi bulun! sitemiz meslek ve iş olanakları için kaynağınızdır. İş ilanı arayın, sitemizin meslek personellerinden iş önerisi edinin ve işe alım önerileri bulun. sitede Türkiye üzerinde meslek olanakları arayın. Meslek kategorisi, il - ilçe, firma ve daha fazlasına göre göz atın. CVnizi yollayın. Giriş mertebesinden CEO rollerine kadar Türkiyedeki bütün yeni işleri bulun. Bölgeye, tüketicilere ve ya kuruma göre listeleyin. Sizin için doğru iş ilanını görün ve bir kariyer edinin. sitemiz iş inceleme motorunu kullanarak alanlarınızda iş çalışanı arayan iş ilanlarını bulun - meslek bulmanın en kolay yolu. Size en yakın iş bulmak ve yalnız bir tıklama ile başvurun. Çevrenizdeki bulunan firmalar nedeni ile gönderilen en yeni meslek ilanlarını bulun ve inceleyin. İş inceleme sitemiz üzerinden doğrudan ilan sahipleriyle bağlantıya geçin. Aşağıdaki linklerle meslek arama konusunda bilgi alın. İnternette onbinlerce meslek sitesi var, lakin en bilindik meslek şirketleri ve meslek arama sayfaları, kullanımı zordur, seri ve kolay yöntemlere hemen erişin.
avustralya iş ilanları 2017 konusunda ve yurtdışı iş ilanları ile ilgili buradan bilgi alabilirsiniz. UdW0qkAj5v
avustralya iş ilanları 2017 konusunda ve yurtdışı iş ilanları ile ilgili buradan bilgi alabilirsiniz. UdW0qkAj5v
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