Apotheon

When Zeus and the other gods turn their back on humans, it is up to the player to fight against a few raiders and then storm Mount Olympus to steal the power of the gods! With a thematic art style this action side scroller is quite fun and doesn't over stay its welcome. I managed to finish it while doing my usual Warframe grinds and testing out Warhammer 40K: Darktide.

My only negative is that fighting (which happens a lot) is a bit odd. I usually ended up using either a ranged weapon or the wonderful assassin daggers that multiply damage if you can hit the back of an opponent. Since you normally can walk through each other, this makes it really easy to get those backstabs in. It's a very neat little game - recommended!

Maximum Apocalypse

Don't settle for a regular apocalypse!

This 1-6 player cooperative card game has players moving about the tile constructed map to complete objectives through 10 scenarios where you'll be facing zombies, mutants, robots and aliens - afterwards just whack them all together and see how you go! :P

I'm going to start with negatives: the box packing is lousy. As soon as I opened it I looked got a bunch of resealable sandwich bags for each card set and tossed out the box insert. Even with this system setting up an packing away takes a reasonable amount of time. That said, once it's all setup turns go very smoothly.

Each character has their own deck and you start with four cards open. Usually you also start with a monster (they just follow you around until you kill them). Then on your turn:

1) roll the 2D6 monster dice and if any tile shows that number put a monster token there
2) open a card from your deck
3) do four actions which are either moving or using cards
4) take damage from any monster in front of you
5) increase your hunger d6 die, and get hunger damage if its already at 6

Then its the next players turn. I quite like that each character also has their own role too: the tanky fireman, tinkery engineer, DPS gunslinger, murderous doctor, jack of all trades veteran and far-seeing scout are unique and useful in the right situations.

Very enjoyable game, and I'm eager to test the mixed opponent decks next time I pull it out. I have to say the mid-game convoy mission vs robots is easily the hardest though, so just look out for that!

Mole Rats in Space and Dog Man - Attack of the Fleas

Games for kids!

Mole Rats in Space

Made by the creator of Pandemic, this 2-4 player cooperative game has players control the titular Mole Rats in Space whose plastic figures come with functional basket backpacks that can carry the items on the board. The goal is to get all of them and have everyone make it to the escape pod while avoiding the inexplicable snake infestation. It's snakes (and ladders) in space!

You each start with a medkit that lets you survive one snake bite. Get a second bite (or fall down a chute into space) and its game over for everyone! It's also game over if a snake gets to the escape pod, because they are super crafty.

The movement cards are key, everyone starts with one face up and these determine how many mole rats move how many spaces, then which snakes how many spaces. Left or right is the only choice. If whatever move lands on a ladder it gets closer to the escape pod. If it lands on a chute it goes down to wherever the chute leads. You will ideally be moving snakes into the chutes that toss them out into space. After completing your card, discard it and draw another then its the next players turn.

Fun but suffers a little with replayability since the setup is always the same.

Dog Man - Attack of the Fleas

In this 2-6 cooperative game each player plays as a character from Dog Man and must work together to get items and stop the robot dinosaur (Fleas is an acronym) before it gets to its destination. Oh and then everyone has to get back to the Dog Man's base in 3 moves to party.

No character is better than the other at anything (though some start in better spots) and moves are done just by flicking a spinner then hoping you land on useful items. You spin to move the dino as well before the turn passes to the next person. It's silly and fun but I don't think you'd play this more than a few times.

Pandemic: State of Emergency and In the Lab

Jim let us try out these expansions for Pandemic that he's had for awhile and they both can change the base game just enough to make it feel different again.

State of Emergency

While this adds a Super bug (purple cubes) challenge and lock down tokens where you can pay a card to quarantine a city (up to 4, or 6 is someone is using the Colonel role) which prevents disease cubes spawning on it twice, the "bigger" change is when you use the Hinterlands challenge that adds two mini boards next to the world map which depict the animals in those regions also spreading the disease.

You can normally only move to them through one of the five cities they are attached to meaning they're hard to get to, but once there you can trade any card of that color with another player in the same Hinterland region (as opposed to exactly the same city). On the negative side, should a Hinterland outbreak - all the connected cities get hit as well and vice versa.

In the Lab

This one also adds a new board, the Lab, where someone must spend turns sequencing the cure for each virus. On the flip side, instead of one person needing 5 of the same colored cards to make a cure those can now come from numerous players. It's a nice mini-game but someone will probably be locked in there the whole game so that's a bit hit or miss.

Are either compelling enough for me to purchase for myself? No, I think I've burned out on old Pandemic. Happy to play Pandemic: Fall of Rome though, where the "virus" is people!

Monopoly Deal Card Game and Secret Code

Kids games that I'm terrible at! :P

Secret Code

Basically a rebranded "Mastermind", this two player game has one player set 4 (or 5) colored pins behind a shield and it is the other player's job to match the colors (8 choices) in the correct sequence. The Code setter then verifies how many are correct colors in wrong spots and how many are just correct but not necessarily which ones are correct. I rate it a "meh".

Monopoly Deal

This competitive 2-5 player card game goes much faster than the original Monopoly. On a players turn, every one draws a random "money" card (which could also be an action card like: steal someone's property or block a steal), play an action card if you want to, then open a property card to bid on. Whoever bids highest wins the property, then its the next person's turn.

The objective is to collect 3 "sets" of property, easily distinguished by colors to win. It's worth mentioning once a "set" is completed it can no longer be targeted by steals and such. The result is a blitz-speed game with some light strategy and some heavy luck in the money draws. Quite fun!

Avatar: The Way of Water and the 100 (TV Series)

Featuring humans from space!

Avatar: The Way of Water

After betraying the greedy humans in the first movie to become a big blue cat person, Jake (Sam Worthington) has had a number of years of peace on Pandora - time enough to raise a litter of blue cat people - when the Sky People (humans) suddenly return. Having (stupid) kids has made Jake a coward, so he eventually takes his brood far away to try hide but since this is an action movie that doesn't work for long.

Like the previous flick the graphics here are gorgeous, and while there is almost too much time spent on the silly kids and the plot is just ok, there is more than enough violence to keep me happy here and to look forward to the next movie. Recommended!

The 100

After almost a hundred years of living on a space station, 100 juvenile delinquents are sent back to Earth to see if the nuclear radiation has dissipated enough to make it is survivable. Why delinquents? Because adults found guilty of crimes are quickly executed. Also that space station is quickly running out of air.

What I thought would be a silly, teenage drama with a light survival story is actually the opposite. It's all about survival and what the characters are willing to do for it. Good acting, good script (though it is really flaky with magic medicine and gets more and more far out there as the seasons go along) and an incredibly high death count which regularly includes main characters. Highly recommended!

Slumberland and Everything Everywhere All at Once

One movie took us to the other...

Slumberland

To deal with grief, a young girl (played by Marlow Barkle), takes refuge in the world of dreams to not deal with real life and is rewarded for her narcolepsy! Ok, that aspect of it aside this is a really neat little film that has fantastic CGI and very cool concepts of what the dreaming world would be like.

If anything I would have liked to see more of it, the story is pretty good and there are a good number of laughs to be had especially with Jason Momoa's ridiculous character who dwells in Slumberland. We enjoyed it - recommended!

Everything Everywhere All at Once

An unhappy woman (played by Michelle Yeoh) gains the additional burden of saving the multiverse from an evil clown. Luckily she gains the ability to siphon skills from the other versions of herself, usually by doing something gross, which results in some hilarious situations and a number of good action sequences. Alas the plot was the undoing here as it goes too long for something that boiled down is pretty simple and while intentional, the quick cutting across universes and the over the top antagonist also detracts from the story. Not recommended as some long talking scenes took my wife to Slumberland. :P