When terrorists dig in and negotiators can only buy time.
Silverton Siege
When a bunch of anti-aparthied terrorists freedom fighters screw up their mission they end up retreating into a bank and hold the citizens within hostage. I am very surprised at the hesitancy for anyone to use their firearms but that's just not this sort of movie I guess. Instead, the plot meanders along while trying to garner emotional support for the protagonists while the police simply make mistake after mistake. Had they just gone hard with full on violence the movie would have been only 1/3rd of the current length and more people would have survived. Just saying. Not recommended.
6 Days
In this film the Iranian Embassy in the UK is stormed by terrorists who then make demands for a prisoner release in another country. Unlike Silverton Siege this plot doesn't try to make the terrorists the good guys and instead just focuses on the challenges of the negotiators and the spec ops team preparing to take them down. At least there are less stupid decisions plot wise but also feels slower that Silverton, despite being better. Is it good enough to recommend? Eh... not really. :P
Showing posts with label South Africa. Show all posts
Showing posts with label South Africa. Show all posts
Monday, 18 December 2023
Silverton Siege and 6 Days
Tuesday, 3 May 2022
XCOM 2: Avenger
[Part of the XCOM 2 story]
Despite Earth's best efforts, the aliens won - and after twenty years of "unification" most humans are ok with that. It's almost unbelievable, yet here I am having been freshly rescued by a new XCOM team led by Jane Kelly from an ADVENT prison to help the resistance. Apparently they lost two soldiers in the attempt (because the tutorial forces them to die). I sure hope I'm worth it.
Now I'm onboard the Avenger, a massive alien space ship refit to be a mobile base as we covertly play whackamole with ADVENT forces deep in South Africa. To be more acceptable to the public these ADVENT enforcers are almost people now, humans spliced with alien DNA and injected with some sort of chip in their head. A similar type to the chip chief science officer pulled from my head.
The mobile base is a good idea.
Unfortunately studying chips from corpses aren't getting anywhere, so he's requested tech be developed to jack into a living ADVENT officer. Might be some time before that happens since we still need to clear the lower bowels of the ship to make chambers that can design that, and more chambers to power it. At least the resistance is world wide and provides regular supply drops. Our job is to network them up and take the fight back to the aliens. Time to get to work.
Tuesday, 29 December 2020
MGSV: The Hammer and the Smoke
[Part of the MGS Diary]
As our Espionage Rank continues to improve, a few more Kill Count bases have been located - all of which are in the business of kidnapping. Our troops have had difficulty raiding these as some use "The Bound Dragons" defense meaning all the guards present are in heavy riot gear armor that is hard to penetrate and sport equally heavy machine guns. The other set of bases are full non-lethal, with guards armed with stun or tranq weapons. Both versions have support drones on patrol.
Being prone is the stealthiest option.
It's a little surprising that we have more fails on the non-lethal variant - but those mortars loaded with sleep grenades are dangerous. Caught stunned or unconscious, some of our own soldiers have been fultoned into captivity. Still, thanks to our efforts we have been given enough funds to build and complete our second FOB - meaning we can house more units, send more teams on combat deployments and research more advanced equipment. Raging B is working overtime offsite, mostly at OKB Zero and the central Afghan camp where she is procuring soldiers to fill out the numbers for this new facility.
It is unlikely we will ever afford a third FOB however, as the contracts for each location have doubled in price. I've also heard tell that the boss is setting up some sort of major operation in South Africa which is eating up most of our resources. It's his company after all, he can do what he likes.
-Razor Hedge
Insight: If you don't mind the enemy going on alert, motion detectors are great trap lures. Bring some C4 or decoys and intentionally trip the alarm to draw the enemy into position. Power Generators can be used similarly, and if you go the decoy route, can be used over and over again - just make sure the FOB isn't on alert when doing so.
Thursday, 10 September 2015
Kill all Robots! Transformers: Extinction and Chappie
Transformers: Extinction
Less explosions and better story.
If you haven't seen any of the previous Transformers movies, rejoice! There is no requirement to do so for this film as most of the previous protagonists were scrubbed / killed off during a time skip. Speaking of time skips this movie certainly begins with a few! Fortunately once it gets back on the rails it does a pretty good job of telling its tale, that of how the humans decided to kill all these metallic alien bastards known as either Autobots (goodies) or Decepticons (baddies). For some reason, Optimus Prime (the good guy leader) is number one on the hit list.
Ok, good things first: Mark Wahlberg is a good lead, better than -all- the army guys previously. He plays the part of overprotective father / skilled enough inventor pretty well and I rather enjoyed that he could take on lesser bots by himself. The CGI is outstanding as always, and those cars the robots transform into are -really nice-! There are less explosions than the previous movie (I think) but it also has a better story. Quite liked all the sponsor shots too.
Negatives include: Bits where humans should definitely have died, the "daughter" character is hot but incredibly stupid (oh, let me take a nap beside this giant alien space ship which the authorities are hunting down!), the samurai bot forgets he can turn into a helicopter after using it once(?), all the "extra" bots talk way too much in combat and for some reason there exists stupid "comedy" bots that serve no purpose other than to get laughs. Think carefully as to why the hell you would create such a thing.
The main negative though is that the film feels long. It reached the third act and it just began introducing new characters, what? Anyway, all up I give it two and a half transformium cubes out of five but have no real desire to watch the whole thing again.
~~~
Chappie
Featuring the least secure defense company ever.
In this film, South Africa has an almost fully automated police force with "Scout" robots being the new front line all the bad guys have to deal with. Yah, F-U Robocop! While profitable for his company, the creator of the robots is unhappy because he still wants to create a robot that is more than just a machine - he wants a robot that is self aware (possibly because he's never seen any Terminator movie ever), and through exploiting the really, really weak security measures of his work place (which is meant to be a multi million defense contractor) he gets his wish. Unfortunately the bot falls into the hands of scumbag gangsters thanks again to security flaws, and they end up having to raise the bot as one of their own.
Alright, good stuff first - CG is great, how they make Chappie be cute also gets the thumbs up from me. Hugh Jackman (who rocks a mullet and speaks in his native Australian accent here) plays the antagonist and is fantastic. Not only does he stand for the "opposing church view" of requiring to destroy all godless constructs but also highlights the very, very flawed security of the defense company by carrying a gun everywhere he goes. Even pointing it at colleagues in the office. The action scenes are great and the body count is high: both positives in my book.
On to the dumb stuff: I think I've harped on enough about a defense company having moronically lax security, lacking something as basic as monitored video cameras but that's just one of many plot holes. Such as bad guys letting people that know where their base is, and people forgetting they have advanced tech and time to prepare it. Also, the gangsters who become the main focus of the film were unlikable and as the robot slowly but surely took on their traits it also became unlikable. I was really hoping for a "and then they all died" ending but it wasn't to be. I was definitely cheering for Hugh's character at the finale.
Anyway, it's an entertaining ride if you don't mind the holes but it's not one I'd like to take again unless there's an alternate ending option I don't know about. All up I give it two and a half broken robots out of five.
Less explosions and better story.
If you haven't seen any of the previous Transformers movies, rejoice! There is no requirement to do so for this film as most of the previous protagonists were scrubbed / killed off during a time skip. Speaking of time skips this movie certainly begins with a few! Fortunately once it gets back on the rails it does a pretty good job of telling its tale, that of how the humans decided to kill all these metallic alien bastards known as either Autobots (goodies) or Decepticons (baddies). For some reason, Optimus Prime (the good guy leader) is number one on the hit list.
Ok, good things first: Mark Wahlberg is a good lead, better than -all- the army guys previously. He plays the part of overprotective father / skilled enough inventor pretty well and I rather enjoyed that he could take on lesser bots by himself. The CGI is outstanding as always, and those cars the robots transform into are -really nice-! There are less explosions than the previous movie (I think) but it also has a better story. Quite liked all the sponsor shots too.
Not sure -why- a robot would make a weapon that size but whatever.
Negatives include: Bits where humans should definitely have died, the "daughter" character is hot but incredibly stupid (oh, let me take a nap beside this giant alien space ship which the authorities are hunting down!), the samurai bot forgets he can turn into a helicopter after using it once(?), all the "extra" bots talk way too much in combat and for some reason there exists stupid "comedy" bots that serve no purpose other than to get laughs. Think carefully as to why the hell you would create such a thing.
The main negative though is that the film feels long. It reached the third act and it just began introducing new characters, what? Anyway, all up I give it two and a half transformium cubes out of five but have no real desire to watch the whole thing again.
~~~
Chappie
Featuring the least secure defense company ever.
In this film, South Africa has an almost fully automated police force with "Scout" robots being the new front line all the bad guys have to deal with. Yah, F-U Robocop! While profitable for his company, the creator of the robots is unhappy because he still wants to create a robot that is more than just a machine - he wants a robot that is self aware (possibly because he's never seen any Terminator movie ever), and through exploiting the really, really weak security measures of his work place (which is meant to be a multi million defense contractor) he gets his wish. Unfortunately the bot falls into the hands of scumbag gangsters thanks again to security flaws, and they end up having to raise the bot as one of their own.
Aww, cute doggie!
Alright, good stuff first - CG is great, how they make Chappie be cute also gets the thumbs up from me. Hugh Jackman (who rocks a mullet and speaks in his native Australian accent here) plays the antagonist and is fantastic. Not only does he stand for the "opposing church view" of requiring to destroy all godless constructs but also highlights the very, very flawed security of the defense company by carrying a gun everywhere he goes. Even pointing it at colleagues in the office. The action scenes are great and the body count is high: both positives in my book.
On to the dumb stuff: I think I've harped on enough about a defense company having moronically lax security, lacking something as basic as monitored video cameras but that's just one of many plot holes. Such as bad guys letting people that know where their base is, and people forgetting they have advanced tech and time to prepare it. Also, the gangsters who become the main focus of the film were unlikable and as the robot slowly but surely took on their traits it also became unlikable. I was really hoping for a "and then they all died" ending but it wasn't to be. I was definitely cheering for Hugh's character at the finale.
Anyway, it's an entertaining ride if you don't mind the holes but it's not one I'd like to take again unless there's an alternate ending option I don't know about. All up I give it two and a half broken robots out of five.
Tuesday, 23 July 2013
UFO Assault 101
Part of my XCOM: Defenders of the Earth series!
Dr. Shen completed this Hyperwave Relay device they wanted to build and upon scanning for UFO's we detected a large cloaked bastard lurking in South Africa. It wasn't the same one that shot McCool down unfortunately, but it didn't matter. I sent our local Firestorm in and it shot that bastard down.
Didn't seem big enough to be their leader's ship (I'd think that even for aliens, size matters) but I still sent "A" Team of Hitler, Gravedigger, Big Mike, Bald Witch, Bondi Vet and "new" Major Sledge. What followed can only be described as pure tactical genious! After eliminating a pair of elites patrolling outside, the team entered the craft itself where it sounded like everything was hiding in the central control chamber.
Rather than walk around to the door, the squad took up a good firing position at their initial entry point and grenaded open the wall, revealing not only a frail alien commander but also 2 sectopod squads and four elites! Rained grenades and rockets into the room while Bondi Vet provided smoke gas cover to help survive return fire. In one round almost all enemies were dead, the two sectopods hobbling out and two remaining elites taking cover in an adjacent hallway. A second round of grenades cleared the ship of all enemies entirely, and the team returned without even taking a scratch. In addition, both Gravedigger and Hitler are now highest rank of Colonel! :D
As they brought back the wierd device they found a super large ship appeared on the map, even causing an earthquake at the base. Ahha, -that- must be the boss I thought to myself. Shen pointed out we have nothing to even damage that... yet, but I am confident whatever this device is holds the key in taking that thing down. The end is near, I can feel it.
Dr. Shen completed this Hyperwave Relay device they wanted to build and upon scanning for UFO's we detected a large cloaked bastard lurking in South Africa. It wasn't the same one that shot McCool down unfortunately, but it didn't matter. I sent our local Firestorm in and it shot that bastard down.
Didn't seem big enough to be their leader's ship (I'd think that even for aliens, size matters) but I still sent "A" Team of Hitler, Gravedigger, Big Mike, Bald Witch, Bondi Vet and "new" Major Sledge. What followed can only be described as pure tactical genious! After eliminating a pair of elites patrolling outside, the team entered the craft itself where it sounded like everything was hiding in the central control chamber.
Breach, Bang and Clear!
Rather than walk around to the door, the squad took up a good firing position at their initial entry point and grenaded open the wall, revealing not only a frail alien commander but also 2 sectopod squads and four elites! Rained grenades and rockets into the room while Bondi Vet provided smoke gas cover to help survive return fire. In one round almost all enemies were dead, the two sectopods hobbling out and two remaining elites taking cover in an adjacent hallway. A second round of grenades cleared the ship of all enemies entirely, and the team returned without even taking a scratch. In addition, both Gravedigger and Hitler are now highest rank of Colonel! :D
As they brought back the wierd device they found a super large ship appeared on the map, even causing an earthquake at the base. Ahha, -that- must be the boss I thought to myself. Shen pointed out we have nothing to even damage that... yet, but I am confident whatever this device is holds the key in taking that thing down. The end is near, I can feel it.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)