State of Decay 2: Team Humanity

[Part of the Diary of Zombies]

With a surplus of fuel, Val sends out heart destroying teams armed with molotovs which does the job nicely while she plays peacekeeper between the enclaves of Rashida and Peyton. These two eventually join the Stragglers too as they end up saving each other more and more often. Soldier Umoren and squidman Dan also join, arriving with the warning that a large group of bandits is arriving into Drucker County. Umoren and Val deal with their many scouts and then find their base of operations, using long range sniping to take down all of them. With them gone Val is certain her legacy is secure (map victory) and they never had to move base once!

You'll need at least nine molotovs minimum per heart.

Downey isn't happy there though, so she takes the soldier Umoren and bad girl Rev from Team Sanctuary to Cascade Hills to settle into a house that looks a lot like the last base she was in. At least this one has higher walls. While Team Sanctuary continues to provide utilities to that region, the trio also get daily gifts from Val's Stragglers (benefit of winning as sheriff, you can have two benefits active). Surprisingly, it is Rev who earns the leadership of this group: team Humanity, as her goals align with that of Downey and Umoren. First job: build an army.  

Helping people around the hills they manage to recruit Nancy, Nestor, Lance, and stray cat Brandon. Alas, Nancy is exploded to death when she uses molotovs on a plague heart within an LPG warehouse, and Lance is killed in a firefight against people abducting doctors. Doctor Monique takes his place as the team moves into a huge container fortress that easily houses them all, even when soldier sisters Krissy and Parniyan arrive. Other than the heart in the LPG warehouse, the rest are pretty straightforward to clear with this team - even when low morale (out of meds) has them grumbling and considering exiling their leader Rev.

Insight: It took me a long time to work out that outposts have lockers that you can deposit and withdraw items to and from your main base. This makes looting easier as you don't always need to go back, unless you want to deposit rucksacks.

State of Decay 2: The Stragglers

[Part of the Diary of Zombies]

Splitting into pairs, all the plague hearts turn out to be easy to destroy without any particular tactics (easy mode), and team Sanctuary gains new recruits cowgirl Maddie and Des. With that done team Sanctuary moves base a few times over the next few days while Dr. Hurt tries to work out how to plug in electricity. Eventually this is sorted out when they move into the local fire station which has its own power supply. Soon enough, other people come to request entry into the team and while Dr. Hurt accepts bad girl Rev and good girl Goose - he is forced to turn away others.

This group of unwanteds eventually returns in a pitiful attack which gets them all killed, but the gunfight does draw in a lot of zombies including freak types of bloaters (poison gas), screamers (summon more zeds) and a juggernaut (fat tank). The base holds easily and with that, Dr. Hurt knows his legacy is secure (map victory)! It isn't long before Val and Downey want to run their own place though, so they and Downey's bro Jamaar head on to Drucker Country where they establish a base in a nice house, with utilities supplied by Team Sanctuary (benefit of winning as builder).

Dr. Hurt advises a buckshot diet to this juggernaut.

 

Val and Jamaar go assist new neighbors Rachel and Beth against thieves, "the Furies", and this time Val tries to make peace. The Furies seemingly accept handing over the goods, but immediately go hostile once Val picks them up. The ensuing fire fight draws zombies in and some of the Furies escape while Jamaar is turned into a blood zombie. Val shoots him in the face and takes the two new girls back to base to break the bad news to Downey. Not only did Val kill her brother, by default she is voted leader of this group: "the Stragglers". To reinforce her position, Val also quickly recruits Lory and ex-cop Katz before planning out how to clear the many plague hearts in this area.

Insight: Apparently, to learn electronics you need to read computer books, which is completely different from electrics - for which you need utility books. For me that was very obscure. Also if you recruit one person from an enclave, the rest of the enclave disbands so choose wisely whom you pick, or if its more beneficial to have a friendly enclave around (especially on harder difficulties).

Nightmare of the Wolf, Soul of the Dragon

Two animated movies, one set to the Witcher and the other to Batman!

The Witcher: Nightmare of the Wolf

Focusing on a young Vesimir, this tale encompasses flash backs from Vesimir's pre-Witcher days all the way to why Kaer Morhen is the way it is in the time of the more widely known Geralt. The art and animation are good with gore aplenty and the story has some welcome surprises. If anything, my only question would be "where does Vesimir get all his hair gel?" but in this world of potions and sorcery I'm guessing he just makes it... from monster goo. :P All up a decent film especially for Witcher fans. Three medallions out of five and yep, I'd watch this again.

That would be a strange fight.

Batman: Soul of the Dragon

When super spy Richard Dragon discovers that bad dudes have gotten their hands on a dangerous magical gate, he seeks help from his old time friend and martial arts classmate in Nanda Parbat: Bruce Wayne. Set in the era of bell bottoms and funky groove, this interesting take is heavily focused on martial arts and has the animation to back it up. Obviously it's still a Batman / superhero show though so don't expect realism in any extent, but the story is still quite entertaining as Bats is paired up with characters who are regularly considered villains and each of those get equal screen time to the caped crusader. As I didn't expect much going into it, I was pleasantly surprised and would definitely watch this again. Three soul breakers out of five.

State of Decay 2: Team Sanctuary

[Part of the Diary of Zombies]

At some undisclosed location, Red-Talon soldiers desperately try to hold their position against hordes of zombies while their tech works on the relay to the AI code named CLEO to provide support against the growing undead illness. It does not go well for them.

Shouldn't have used all those wall repair kits earlier on...

At Providence Ridge, an odd group of survivors makes their way to a nearby Firewatch tower to serve as their base. Military girl Val, Dr. Hurt, Downey and her brother Jamaar decide to stop here as Jamaar has been infected by the new blood plague which is being spread by infected zombies recently. At least they are easy to spot, having blood red skin and glowing red eyes instead of the glowing yellow eyes the "regular" zombies do.

Luckily Dr. Hurt knows how to produce a cure if he can get his hands on some plague samples from the infected zeds, so Downey goes to work and finds another group of survivors that want to destroy the nearby plague heart which causes this infection. Joined by handyman William, old Dorothy and female soldier Parker they locate and destroy the horrible looking construct with melee weapons even as it calls waves of zombies to defend it. Fortunately the infection rate here is very minimal (easy mode) and everyone survives.

The next day there is already unrest at the camp as to who should lead. Downey's idea of taking control by force is outvoted immediately while Val blows her chance at becoming "sheriff" when she tries assist another pair of survivors against some thieves. Harsh words and gunfire are exchanged, after which Val takes survivor Douglas back to camp. By default, Dr. Hurt becomes leader as his plan is simply to build a big, self reliant base. His first mandate though: destroy all the remaining plague hearts in the area, because the best defense is a good offense. Thus team Sanctuary is born!

Insight: In Daybreak horde mode, your tech needs to survive seven waves of baddies which was clearly intended for multiplayer. Solo wise best I've done is reach the half way point of round 5. You can buy a lot of time if you fight outside the barricade, especially in the earlier rounds. It pays to learn the dodge counter (C forward through an attacking zed then E its back) as that helps in the main game too.

It's been a long time since I played State of Decay, but its nice to see that my tips for that game still mostly work for this one too! Settings wise I'll be starting from the easiest of easy modes and working my way up slowly using custom difficulty sliders through this story.

Snake Eyes and Black Widow

Movies with black clad protagonists!

Snake Eyes: G.I. Joe Origins

More talkative, makes less sense.

When someone kills his dad, Snake Eyes (Henry Golding) dedicates his entire life to vengeance at any cost. This involves betraying a number of people many times and killing a lot of other people -because they were in his way- out of self defense *cough*. There are some nice action scenes (I particularly enjoyed the ones with Iko Uwais) but there are loads of over the top ones too.

It's one of those flicks where most of the bad guys keep forgetting to bring firearms and the only surprise in the plot is that they remembered to somehow link in G.I. Joe and Cobra to it, because if you don't see the title you can watch most of it without knowing it was a GI Joe flick. Anyway, this isn't something that I'd watch again or recommend and give it two disguise sheets out of five.

That would have been a twist!

Black Widow

Takes place after Captain America: Civil War.

Natasha Romanoff (Scarlett Johansson) has no problem being in hiding due to her stance on the Sokovia Accords, but she doesn't actually get much downtime as a surprise mission comes up that involves reuniting with her "family". There are a few flash back segments to establish this newly revealed past and the story, humor and action segments are quite good. I do have to question Natasha's resilience though as some damage she takes during this film makes me wonder if she too took the super soldier serum.

Definitely a flick for Avenger or Scarlett fans, and one I'd watch again. I give this "passing the torch" three tight fitting suits out of five. It's pretty telling that whatever the next threat the entire Avengers team will need to face, whenever that rolls around there's going to be a drastically different line up based on what's happening in the MCU series as well.

Void Bastards Mothergunship in the Rebel Galaxy

A trio of space themed games!

Mothergunship

Build your guns and shoot the baddies!

With Earth held hostage by an alien armada, the resistance has power armored soldiers like yourself going ship to ship pretending to deliver pizza but in reality on missions to find and eliminate the main Mothergunship. With a comedic plot and cartoon like graphics, enemies spawn out of thin air and launch slow but oversized missiles at you, meaning you really are reliant on that triple-jump ability and those future tech trampolines to get out of the way.

It is a fair bit silly, and it needs to be given the crazy combinations you have when creating weaponry which is the main draw of the game. With only three basic components and a single rule that turrets must all point the same way, this works wonderfully. Turret pieces handle what is fired and at what rate, mods add quirks like bouncing bullets, and connectors handle the obscure physics of making a rocket/grenade/laser/autocannon shotgun.

Ammo is infinite but takes energy to fire, so the bigger the gun expect a longer cool down after shooting. For what it is it works very well. Definitely an afternoon of fun at least, I give it two sockets out of five.

Rebel Galaxy

Where space is an ocean. Literally.

Following some obscure leads to find your aunt puts you in charge of a decent sized space craft and the game promptly dumps you out into the cold reaches of space to find your own way. At stations you can pick up missions and trade cargo to earn some creds which you can then spend on ship upgrades or hiring mercenaries. Most of the time though, you'll be out traveling from point A to B listening to some epic country rock. And fighting. Lots and lots of fighting.

Expect to see a lot of this.

The take here is that you are like a galleon. Broadside weapons are stronger than your 360 degree turrets, and while you can go forward and back or turn left and right YOU can't go up and down. Emphasis on YOU as everything else in the game can which gives the illusion of space. I can understand why they did that though - it makes the control scheme so much easier. If only the repeating missions weren't all a variety of fetch, kill or fetch AND kill quests then I might have stayed longer. Alas the positives don't outweight the negatives for me here so I can't recommend this one. One and a half stellar masses out of five.

Void Bastards

Everyone is a bastard in this void.

Based on the screenshot artwork I didn't expect much from this game but I am so glad I tried it out as the comic book style they have going actually works very well when coupled with actual interactivity. The premise is a prison ship has broken down in a hostile nebula and the AI has decided to use prisoners to do the dirty work of getting all the things needed for repair. Prisoners is plural because if you die, well the next one is sent out and yes, the entire game is a series of fetch quests... but I still played through the whole thing!

This is because the game play loop is very solid. Much like FTL you are flying from point to point in space, scavenging bits fuel and food to keep going as well as other stuff to make weapons, armor, and the like. The nebula is full of bad mutants though, who get worse the "deeper" you go. Of course, you don't actually NEED to go deeper despite the game pushing you that way. That said some of the most fun and scary missions I've taken were at the very depths, against enemies you need to run and/or hide from, with low O2, radiation leaks around and needing to activate the generator before being able to escape at a remote airlock. And yes, you can occasionally chuck enemies out into space.

Most ships also make sense (there's a type that warns you it won't) in that fuel will be found in the engines, food in the break room, staples in the office cubes etc. It's such a well designed game that I couldn't help enjoying myself. Definitely recommended despite the weak/slightly annoying story line. Three colon cleansers out of five.

Insight: You can build quest components yourself to shorten missions if you have enough parts.

White House (X) has Fallen

Saving the president in four action movies!

White House Down

When terrorists attack the White House, rejected bodyguard hopeful (Channing Tatum) somehow becomes the only one capable of saving the President... but he has to save his own daughter too! Much less serious than the next few movies (below) with mostly bloodless deaths and tons of humor, this action flick is very entertaining for what it is. Even the bad guys have quirky personalities which make it all the more enjoyable. Recommended if you need a light, fun, no-brainer flick for the evening. Two and a half "cool" President's carrying rocket launchers out of five.

Olympus has Fallen

When terrorists attack the White House, disgraced agent Mike Banning (Gerard Butler) somehow becomes the only one capable of saving the President... as violently as possible! The body count and violence in this film almost makes White House Down look child friendly - and at the same time makes this even more epic as Agent Banning methodically takes down the bad guys at a good pace. It does portray the President as a bit of an idiot though. Three and a half broken protocols out of five.

I wonder if he's friends with Jack Bauer...

London has Fallen

A state funeral in London is the perfect place for angry terrorists to murder many leaders of the world. Luckily Agent Banning (Gerard Butler) is still on duty to protect the President against this threat as he continues to add to his kill count while flaunting heavy plot-armor. Seriously, if you have superior numbers shooting down a narrow alleyway and you fail to repel the enemy force - you deserve what's coming to you. Two and a half drone strikes out of five.

Angel has Fallen

An attack on the President frames Agent Banning (Gerard Butler) as the guilty party. Now on the run, he has to both kill the bad guys, prove his innocence, AND continue to save the President with his epic fugitive time management skills. No surprises plot wise but still a nice flick where the dumb bad guys get what's coming to them. Three awesome acting babies out of five.