Garden Story and Humankind

Of fruits and men...

Garden Story

This cutesy action RPG has you playing a fruit who is called to the service of guardianship against the night time appearing rot monsters that threaten each of the four seasonal themed villages in your grove. Easy controls and nice art make this nice to get into, but doing random quests from a board and grinding out money for gear, and then wrangling inventory space for said gear gets old fast. Ironically a victim of the Epic free games scheme because on its own I probably would have played more of it, but given a choice with a steady stream of things to try sorry - this one is left to rot.

Humankind

This civilization building game starts you out as nameless tribes in the Neolithic era and then as you collect "era stars" (which varies by era: in the first one its simply exploration and then moves to military or scientific achievements) and once you do you can progress to the next which lets you pick a culture to adopt which gives you specific bonuses. The Greeks are good at science, the Assyrians good at raiding and so on. While there are lots of systems running here none are immediately overwhelming thanks to the easy interface.

That is until you get to the "city cap". If you go over the city cap you start taking deductions that you might not even notice which can send you into an untenable position. A simple warning screen would have been nice. Eliminating enemy empires can also turn into a game of whack a mole (if you go via the conqueror route which I'm sure is everyone's first game :P) as they must be wiped out to the last city, outpost, and unit from the map which can feel unsatisfying - especially as that last unit will probably be hidden on one of their allies lands.

Still a decent game that I ended up playing more than I thought, even though its a type of game I generally dislike but yes, there are some nasty surprises that might catch you if you aren't looking out for them.

Spaceman and the Electric State

Movies with advanced technology?

Spaceman

On an important solo mission to see what's on the other side of Jupiter, cosmonaut Jakub (played by Adam Sandler) disturbingly discovers there's a passenger aboard his vessel - and its here to help him fix his deteriorating relationship with his wife? Yeah, as cool (and wrong) as the space stuff is this is definitely a study about a man who only thinks about himself and is ending up alone thanks to his decisions, conveniently reinforced by him being almost alone on his space ship. While the passenger is my nightmare fuel it certainly makes the movie. I'm not going to be watching this one again though!

The Electric State

In a world where robots gained self awareness then fought a civil war and lost, a teenage orphan (played by Millie Bobby Brown) goes on a quest with one such robot who claims to be her dead brother. While this certainly starts off weak it picks up as more and more action segments kick in (with some decent funny bits thrown in), showcasing a lot of cool CGI for the very goofy robots that really make the show. Does it pick up to the extent of making this visually entertaining flick to be a great movie? No, but decent enough for me not to mind watching it again.

Across the Obelisk and Mortal Shell

Games that expect you to die a lot.

Across the Obelisk

This cooperative fantasy rogue like has you control a group of heroes as they quest across a multi-path map and run into loads of combat that plays out like Darkest Dungeon - albeit with a merrier colour scheme and more humor, and action card decks per hero which eat up a variable number of "action points" to use (if you get lucky enough / built your deck well enough to draw them in the first place). Team wipes are guaranteed as that's the only time you get to upgrade things with currency you earned from the previous run. The result is a whole lot of repetition and not a whole lot of fun. Check points were invented for a reason!

Mortal Shell

This grim fantasy action RPG has you play as a thing that can take control of specific corpses ("shells") and plays a lot like Dark Souls, except there's a lot more bad guys in a lot less space making combat tricky and slow. The shells each have their own perks that you unlock as you get "familiar" with them. That is a cool system actually, as it covers consumables as well. Use a poison shroom the first time and you'll probably die (and lose your "tar"/exp/souls) but use it the next time and it makes you immune from poison. The third time and poison immunity lasts longer and so on.

Alas going is super slow especially at the start when you have no upgrades because of the packed environments and unforgiving combat. In Dark Souls you many more options of where to go and what to try where as here is mainly - run past these guys or fight well? Repeat because said guys are everywhere  and respawn when you "rest". With every direction feeling like a brick wall I still think there's a decent game in here somewhere, but I'm not patient enough to get to it.

Beyond Blue and Jurassic World Evolution 2

Where wild life is the focus.

Beyond Blue

This is an exploration game where you play a diver swimming around and scanning ocean wild life. The controls are easy and its a pretty good looking game but there's no danger to be found here, just story. I think I might have preferred if the game been one big map with plenty to see and scan (ala Skyrim) rather than the medium sized swim zones per level, separated by bits of "down time" on your small sub where you do things like make phone calls. Not a game for me.

Jurassic World Evolution 2

I didn't like the first one of these so it's no surprise I don't like this sequel which retains the sim-zoo feel. Dinos are on the loose and like pokemon you need to catch em all and imprison them in specifically determined man made zones. They retained the semi first person helicopter / chopper shooting part (tranqs only) which is cool, but I drew the line at having to make the first dinosaur 95% content. I'd much prefer to slay the dragons than trap them, but that's not the target audience for this game.

Warm Bodies and Venom: The Last Dance

A pair of corny movies.

Warm Bodies

This zombie comedy romance flick stars Nicholas Hoult as the protagonist zombie who falls for a very much alive girl.  This alternate view point is pretty original as its quirky nonsensical power of love plot. Might be a good pick for those of you who like the three C's in movies: cheesy, campy and corny but otherwise stay away.

Venom: The Last Dance

Closing out Tom Hardy's trilogy of Venom movies, this one has him on the run from both law enforcement and new alien scum sent by a bad guy who loves narration. It  certainly feels that they just wanted to get this over and done with many ridiculous scenes that should have ended up on the cutting room floor but I guess they really just wanted one last crazy ride with the anti-hero symbiote, so much so that they just whacked in a whole bunch of them in here to give them possibly their last chance of screen time. Definitely turn your brains off if watching this one. Not recommended.

Undying, Turmoil and Neko Ghost Jump

A trio of Epic freebies.

Undying

This zombie crafting survival game features a twist in that you play a mother already bitten in the intro, who must teach her young (and annoyingly useless) son how to survive in this apocalypse. Show him how to dismantle difficult machinery and defeat zombies, sure... but also show him how to get water from a fountain into a plastic bottle, how to water plants, and how to scavenge? He also whines A LOT.

While the game play is kind of ok but the stylistic character art is poor and it becomes readily evident that your main enemy in this game aren't the zombies - it's your own backpack and the lack of space there in. If you aren't keen on inventory management then this is not a game for you. Or me.

Turmoil

This 2D oil barony "almost" idle game is one with simple controls and simple decisions: after winning your desired plot of land from your competitors you send forth your hired dowsers to give you a hint of where to dig, then build the oil pumps to (hopefully) get the oil out and hire wagons to transport said oil to sell to the shops (where the price constantly fluctuates) or store in your own warehouse while waiting for prices to be more favorable.

Most of the action is automated, which lets you focus on how many things you have, where to place new things and if/where to selling to. Excess funds can be used to upgrade pretty much everything and that's the game loop. Surprisingly fun but gets repetitive fast.

Neko Ghost Jump

In this super silly platform game you play a cat on the cat planet trying to rescue his cat bride from scurvy space dogs. The main gimmick is that you must switch from 2D and 3D platforming because there might be tunnels you can only access in 3D view and then impossible diagonal jumps that become easy in 2D view.

I assume there's also some ghost mechanic as hinted by the title and intro cinematic but I never got that far as the game crashed on tutorial level 3. Not recommended.

Adolesence and Twilight of the Gods

Two Netflix series about killing!

Adolesence

This four episode British series starts off with the arrest of a 13 year old boy for murder and goes from there. It's a pretty heavy story in terms of content but also features excellent cinematography and acting, the primary reason for which is that each of the one hour episodes is all shot in a single take with no cuts. This is excellent TV and is high on my recommended list.

Twilight of the Gods (Season 1)

This Norse themed animated series has a high content of violence, gore, nudity and sex - definitely not for younger audiences! It follows a vengeful bride to be who goes after Thor with the help of Loki and more than a few other Norse mythological beings. I like the art style and the flowing animation but it suffers from characters passing the idiot ball which makes the tale far less epic than it's trying to be. I'll watch season 2 if they make it but am not so fussed if it never happens either.

Fridays IN SPACE!

It's been a minute since I've talked about our Friday night game sessions and they all seem to be taking place in space at the moment! The early night staple is Helldivers 2 continues to be fun and crazy with all the updates in both terms of gear and story. The Illuminates are back on the map now and there's a black hole eating planets as it slowly makes its way to Super Earth. Lol.

We've also recently finished Warhammer 40,000: Inquisitor - Martyr that plays a little bit like Diablo, just in the Warhammer 40k universe with DL going full sword marine, Jim running a psyker, and myself the stock standard Space Marine specializing in bolt guns. It's quite funny that the warp gets angry if Jim uses too much power though, as it starts sending tornadoes and demons after him! Lol. The story is not bad, and there are loads of enemy types "add on" mechanics and game modes that could potentially keep you playing this for a long time after finishing the campaign but alas the game play is very repetitive and dull.

Now we've just started Space Marine 2 which is set in the same play space but this one has higher graphic demands with the over the shoulder camera while fighting swarms of tyranids. We definitely need to be more on our toes here for timed button presses mid combat and so far it's been really great - apart from that I can't see the cut scenes since it doesn't like my graphics card and the exorbitantly long loadings times. Not that it matters, the missions play well enough and give enough info as to what's going on. So far it's a very entertaining game.

Pandemic: On the Brink - Bio-Terrorist Mod

It's funny that after owning all these other versions of Pandemic (Rome, Iberia, Warcraft :P), I decided to revisit the original and my first expansion of On the Brink where we never actually get to use the hidden movement variant of the bio terrorist 1 vs many PvP mode. Well, here's an easy mod I came up with to integrate him into a cooperative game - and really you don't need On the Brink to do it, you just need another marker or something to indicate where he is. Play with all the events available to have a chance.

During setup put his marker on the first infection deck city you pull (so the first of the 3 cubes).

Players get a new action: If they are in the space with the bio terrorist, you can spend one action to arrest him and put him beside the infection deck.

While he is locked away the game plays as normal, but when he's on the loose you simply do this: on the first draw of the infection deck, place the bio-terrorist there and add a cube of the appropriate color if allowed as per normal (eradicated diseases or characters that prevent cube spawns will also stop his cube from spawning). Obviously if this makes it go over three cubes in a single city, "explode" the disease as normal.

If an epidemic card is drawn then he escapes captivity (if he was captured) and will again appear on the first draw of the infection deck.

This makes him move around a fair bit but after an epidemic card his movements will be more predictable (and dangerous) since he is visiting cities that already have cubes!

Barely won our trial game with him so I think I'll try put him or his counterparts into my other Pandemic things to see how they go. Warcraft in particular is way too easy in normal mode.

Update: The Warcraft one reaches a suitable difficulty level if all the scourge cards are in the deck. No need for any adjustments there now. :)

Seal Team and the Chosen

TV Series with teams of guys...

Seal Team

This seven season series follows Bravo team, led by Master Chief Jason Hayes (played by David Boreanaz) as they are deployed on dangerous missions around the globe and then have to deal with the normality of mundane life when being back home. That second bit is a bit of a drag, and securely fits this show under the drama category.

That said, the action segments (of which there are plenty) are really great! I particularly enjoy the dog related stunts because that is one very well trained pooch! Might not be everyone's cup of tea, but with gunfire, explosions, death, a completed story and a talented puppy I enjoyed it. Thumbs up!

The Chosen

This currently on going drama series (now on season 4 and available on Prime) focuses on the lives of the apostles as they meet, join up and travel with Jesus of Nazareth. It is also perhaps the best Christian series I've seen, with good doses of humor, (a little) violence, writing and acting all through out. One episode was almost a single take through the whole thing.

I really like the direction they went with this where yeah, Jesus is cool and important and wise but also still a person with quirks AND that he's only in each episode for a few minutes. By focusing on the growth of the everyone else (and there's a vast cast to follow), it makes the story that much better. Apparently season 1 is also currently the most successful crowdfunded TV series in history. Recommended!

House Wars V: The Flood

After so many years of everything going ok (well, other than a few trees growing from my rooftop gutter) this was a new one for me. My wife woke me up an hour or so after we went to bed because "it's flooding" and sure enough, a hose under one of the sinks had corroded to the point that (hot) water was gushing out and had reached at least half of our house, including some bits with carpet!

Had to turn off the water main to the house then spent that night mopping and toweling everything off, followed by spreading boxes and boxes of Bi-carb over the wet carpet, having fans going and putting dehumidifiers everywhere. It's all back to normal now and hopefully we caught that in time to prevent mold. Not sure how we'd be able to tell, (I'm guessing there'd be a mold smell?) but whatever.

However we've just undertaken a project that's revealed a second flood, not of water but of stuff that we've just accumulated over the years. Going through a major de-cluttering exercise now and I'm surprised at the amount of junk coming out that we can donate and/or throw. Apparently I am a hoarder of papers which is annoying because they are the least satisfying to clean out. On the positive side, I've been getting rid of clothes that are too big for me now because for a change I've lost weight (around 16 kg). Amazing what cutting down on carbs can do.

Zero Day and Paradise

Series that involve presidential action.

Zero Day

After a cyber attack causes chaos and disaster all across the USA, former president Mullen (played by Robert De Niro) is made lead investigator and put in charge of a newly formed goverment group that can freely trample the people's freedoms to find the culprit. It's certainly an interesting chase, made more challenging given Mullen's slowly losing his mind. With only six episodes it's worth a watch, but man do I hate that "Who killed Bambi" song that keeps playing in every episode.

Paradise

This so far one season series follows a lead secret service security agent (played by Sterling K. Brown) whose life gets much more complicated when the president he's supposed to protect is murdered! With powerful people pulling the strings he's not sure who to trust. Good story with interesting hooks per episode that will make you want to watch the next one. Especially as there's only eight episodes currently its a recommended one to binge watch. :)

The Witcher: Sirens of the Deep and Bogota: City of the Lost

Movies with ... colons in the title?

The Witcher: Sirens of the Deep

This animated film follows everyone's favorite Witcher, Geralt as he gets embroiled in basically a much darker version of the Little Mermaid. Sorry, the parallels are just too obvious! That said it has a good deal of violence, adult themes and an important Witcher spin on the whole thing that keeps it interesting. While the animation is ok, too much spinning can be found in Geralt's depicted combat style. Not bad but I'd recommend this only to Witcher fans, especially the game version of the Witcher since its the same voice actor.

Bogota: City of the Lost

En route to the USA, a Korean family is robbed of their money and travel documents in Bogota and they are forced to live there. Wishing for a better life the son decides to get involved with petty smuggling and working his way up the crime chain because this is one of those movies where crime pays. Outside the interesting Colombian environment this is a pretty stock standard and mostly predictable crime flick with backstabbing aplenty. Not terrible but not great either.

Silo and 3%

TV Series set after a cataclysm.

Silo

Ten thousand people live in an underground silo and they don't know why, or for how long, or much of anything really - and that is the main initial hook of this sci-fi show: watching how these micro-managed citizens deal with finding out truths of their existence. Very cool ideas, setting, world building and story but for some viewers (like myself) there might be a few "supply" issues that may never be addressed. Still one I'm a fan of and am eagerly awaiting season 3!

3%

In this four season Brazilian series everyone lives in a literal hole of poverty but every year, all 20 year olds have an opportunity to take "the Process" to prove they are the best of the crop and the top 3% will be taken away to live on an island paradise. This way of life has both made a church that worships the 3% "gods" and a rebellion that feels it isn't fair to everyone else for so few to have so much. A very cool idea with excellent characters and character growth only marred by clear budget constraints on their CGI effects (oh, and a few very silly scenes that need to be viewed for best "enjoyment"). If you can look past those, then this is a very entertaining series to watch.

Cobra Kai and Golden Kamuy 2

TV series that follow movies.

Cobra Kai

Set around thirty years after The Karate Kid, this show follows depressed alcoholic Johnny Lawrence (again played by William Zabka, antagonist from the film) as he tries start up Cobra Kai again, much to the dismay of his rival Daniel LaRusso (again played by Ralph Macchio) of Miyagi-do. While a lot of time is spent on the teen students of the various dojos the main heart of this series is the dynamic between this pair which makes for some excellent TV. As a bonus - yeah, the karate is ok too. 

My wife and I don't really remember the movies much but all the cameos and quick flash backs to them are super cool. Best of all, the story is completely wrapped up in Season Six which makes this a very binge worthy candidate if you haven't already seen it (and you don't need to have seen any of the movies to understand it). Big thumbs up, recommended!

Golden Kamuy 2

I ended my review Golden Kamuy by saying "Don't bother watching it until there's a Golden Kamuy 2", and lo and behold - here it is: a series directly taking place after the movie where our protagonists race to get all the pieces of a treasure map that's tattooed ON people! There are still some nice action sequences and a high frequency of bears but its like the writer gets distracted a lot and goes on tangents about cooking and the life style in that period (which for me is fascinating) but if you aren't a fan of Japanese style comedy this might be lost on you. 

For example, there's a killer who always gets a hard on after killing and they make sure the viewer knows about it in hilarious ways. Let's just say if you managed to make it through the movie then maybe this one is for you. We'll be waiting for season 2!

Behind the Frame and Them's Fightin' Herds

Games with excellent animation.

Behind the Frame

This very short and relaxed game is all about painting and puzzle solving. Despite the "painting by numbers" portions that let you brush paint everywhere, the art is really good with its anime style. Thankfully the puzzles are pretty easy to let you focus on the excellent story which will put a knife in your feels I enjoyed very much. Highly recommended, if you enjoy something that is more of a narrative than mechanics.

Them's Fightin' Herds

It's is like Streetfighter for My Little Pony, but the smooth animation and cute critters are very well done! There's also a story mode that plays a bit like an RPG Maker game interspersed with both jumping puzzle and (many) combat segments which is pretty cool, but the difficulty ramps up rather quickly and boss fights become a chore. It's a different one, that's for sure.

Annihilation and Transformers: Rise of the Beasts

Movies about getting wiped out.

Annihilation

In this sci-fi horror, a biology professor (Natalie Portman) volunteers to be part of a team of scientists (who apparently are also all firearms trained) to investigate an alien shimmering zone that is slowly expanding from a meteor crash site. Inside is much prettier than Stalker's zone of exclusion, but pretty much just as bad. Big thumbs up to the set design and digital stage creators for making an awesome visual display, but the actors rarely were looking at the right thing and the plot is predictable. I thought these people were meant to be smart? Only recommended for Natalie Portman fans.

Transformers: Rise of the Beasts

Talking about predictable plots... LOL. Prior to most of the other Transformer movies, a plot device was hidden away on Earth by time traveling giant robotic animals (Maximals) but of course bad robots are after said key and this gets Optimus Prime and his crew involved. As well as some broke dude who decides a life of crime is the only way to get money because there needed to be some human involved right? Alas outside of the impressive CGI, there's nothing really new here outside of adding more characters that the writers are generally too afraid to kill ("someone needs to think of the -children- fans!"). Would it be a better movie with a higher death count? Yes. All of them would be. Recommended only for Transformers fans.

The Pancake Adventure

A quick Forged in the Dark adventure I ran for Jim's family when we last visited. Due to time constraints and basically making the mission up on the fly I simplified everything and let each player start with two skills, and so our party consisted of Jim the gymnastic hacker, Trhia the driver hacker, Keira the karate astrologer and doctor salesperson Rose. Oh, and because of Keira's age, I tried not to make the story too grim dark. :P

While walking out in the neighborhood to get an ice cream, the team comes across a little girl asking for help in finding her missing cat "Pancake". She's next to a sign board with many other bits of paper of others missing their pets too. As the girl remembers some goons taking the cat into a black Daihatsu Thor, Jim tries to hack the police database with his mobile phone to track it down and fails so powerfully that his phone explodes!

Shaking her head with a "tsk, tsk" sound, Trhi does the same and succeeds finding there are only 2 of the said vehicle in town and the very first address they visit they spot it behind a massive gate with goons unloading animal cages before a three story house. The gate guard refuses them entry and Keira uses her karate to flying kick him into the gate, knocking the whole thing down!

Jim (acrobatically), Trhi (hacking the security cameras) and Keira sneak into the bushes beyond while more guards rush the gate where Rose uses both her doctor and salesperson ability to distract them and send a few of them with the injured man to the hospital. Keira is spotted, but manages to continue to distract her guard patrol with knowledge of astrology and brown dwarves (these guards are really dumb).

Using acrobatics, Jim climbs up to an open window and encounters a man wearing multiple black belts whom he tries to knock out but fails, getting into a scuffle. Trhia heads down an open exterior storm basement door and hacks her way past a digital lock to find herself in an underground laboratory and encounters a monstrous, howl-meowling dog-cat which starts beating her up.

Hearing the commotion Keira decides its time to put on her own black belt and beat up the guards to rush to Trhi's aid, but Rose gets there first and manages to pull her aside for some minor heals. Upstairs Jim is losing to belt man until he gets a fireplace poker and shoves it through belt man's skull, from underneath the jaw up. Belt man's head explodes because he was a robot!

After finding a deceased girl in an upstairs observatory with notes about revivication using animal blood, Jim takes the small elevator down to the basement and is joined mid way by an old looking scientist who is late in noticing Jim isn't one of the guards. Dr. Samurai X pulls out his cane sword and revolver and tussles with Jim in the elevator (and Jim hilariously scrambles around the tiny space like a squirrel).

Downstairs Keira's kung fu doesn't do much to the dog-cat as the creature blasts her away with a laser blast from its mouth (why not). This buys enough time for Rose and Trhia to find some tranquilizers which Trhi shoots into the monster, putting it to sleep. They lock it up and free the other surviving animals including Pancake just as Jim arrives, having knocked out the elderly doctor in the elevator.

Loading the animals into a car, Trhi drives out of there expertly and they return all the pets and finally get to that ice cream shop they were trying to go to in the first place!

The end. That was a fun and silly 1.5 hour session. :)

Elevation and The Mountain Between Us

Movies about being high up.

Elevation

This post apocalyptic action film stars Anthony Mackie as one of the survivors who lives high up in the mountains where the "horrible creatures who killed every one else" don't go because they have a hard limit to stop at 8000ft elevation. Of course, he soon has a reason to go back down the mountain because stories need conflict! :P Despite the simple story and low number of cast members, the action is decent as is the critter CGI (when they get to it). An ok watch but one that could have been better / feels like a missed opportunity.

The Mountain Between Us

When a pair of impatient travelers (played by Kate Winslet and Idris Elba) decide to book a small charter flight that crashes in a mountainous wilderness, they can only depend on each other to survive. Good thing they also packed some plot armor! This survival drama is much slower paced than Elevation but is alright if you're looking for a less actiony film that focuses on the relationship of the pair. Obviously I preferred Elevation because it has monsters and guns but that's a personal preference. 

State of Play: USA aligns with Russia?

It's now day 1103 of the Russia's two day special operation in Ukraine. While the battle rages on there it seems Russia is making some gains outside that theater, seemingly with the help of relatively newly re-elected USA president Donald Trump. In just around two months of his second time in office the USA has held "Peace Talks" with Russia without Ukrainian participation and decided to halt aid going to Ukraine after President Trump publicly clashed with Ukrainian president Zelenskyy at the Oval Office.

On top of this his high tariffs on Canada, Mexico (he also renamed their gulf) and China as well as sanctions relief for Russia some speculate he's building "the bridge" to trade primarily with the Russians in the future. This has sparked more than a few interesting comments of "Trump is a Russian agent" and "Congrats to Russia on winning the cold war". I suppose we will see if and how this changes the battle field but one thing's for sure: Putin must be pretty happy right now.

Viticulture World: Cooperative Expansion

An amazing game about making wines!

Prelude: The base game of Viticulture is a competitive one which we didn't play but is required to play this cooperative expansion. Made by the same people who created Wingspan, Viticulture World is a worker placement game with differing actions per season, across a time limit of 6 years (and differing "world" event cards change the flow drastically). By then each player must be at 25 victory points (or more) and the influence token must also have reached the "full" end of its track.

I won't lie, this was a bit complicated to get started with and the rule book could have used a full cheat sheet of symbols somewhere so expect your first game to be a really long one (especially if like us, you haven't played the base game) but once you've got it it's actually pretty simple! Simplified per season its just:

Spring: As a team you place your rooster on the "time" clock which determines what bonus you get right now (might be a card, money, extra worker or 1 VP) and what order you will be placing workers down for this year.

Summer: Place workers to get seeds, plant them, give tours, construct buildings, develop new tech (important if you want to win), and use summer visitors.

Fall: Move your roosters to the inner part of the time clock and either gain a card, money or age a grape.

Winter: Harvest grapes, turn grapes into wine (very cool), use winter visitors and fill wine orders to gain VP!

In addition to the main board each player gets their own player mat to keep track of their buildings, fields and most importantly grapes and wines, both of which get older each year to a max of 9, and turning grapes into wine makes retains their age (eg 3 year old grapes make 3 year old wine, unless you don't have a "3" slot which makes it reduce to a "2" slot etc).

Orders usually ask for a combo of wines at around 4 or just one of the 7-9 rank ones and having a discard down to 5 cards rule at the end of each year makes it important for you to trade with your friends to make the most of each turn. There's way more to it than what I've written but that's the gist of it.

Now buying the base game AND this expansion is a bit pricey, but if your cooperative group likes tough games with not necessarily a lot of combat (like the cooperative mode of Wingspan) then this is a good investment for you. If your group isn't cooperative then just the base Viticulture should do, but I can't comment on how good or not good that is. :P

12 Strong and Changing Lanes (2002)

Movies of conflict - on the opposite ends of the scale! Wait... all movies have conflict...

12 Strong

After the 9/11 attacks, Captain Mitch Nelson (played by Chris Hemsworth) is eager to take on the Taliban on their home turf and is deployed covertly with a small squad (its in the name) to do just that. It does help that he has some significant air support though! Inspired by real events, most of this film is gun play - almost too much of it actually, because outside plenty war action bits there's not really much happening story wise (outside the, "we gotta go kill those guys"). Perfect if you just want to see people shooting each other and getting blown up though.    

Changing Lanes

Rushing to get to court a lawyer (played by Ben Affleck) has a minor collision with a recovering alcoholic (played by Samuel L. Jackson) which screws up both their respective cases: the alcoholic loses his custodial parenting rights while the lawyer loses an important document collected by the other man. So ensues a feud of escalation between the two parties which is the main focus for this film and while this two thirds of the movie is decently interesting, the first third where it just sets up the two characters is very slow. Watch it if there's nothing else on, but feel free to multi-task until that initial collision scene which is where the movie should have started.

Time (TV) and Sifu (PC)

Media that spans a few years?

Time

This British drama series focuses on people going to prison and what happens during their time there, and it is surprisingly well done with a tight script. It also helps when you've got strong actors like Sean Bean (season 1) and Bella Ramsey (season 2 - set in a female prison) among many others [they're all good, even the ones just there for you to hate]. Not one I thought I'd like but its turned out to be one of the best shows I've watched for a while. Definitely recommended!

Sifu

You've trained your life to get vengeance on the gang that killed your dad and wrecked your dojo. Now armed with just your martial arts and a magical trinket that lets you come back from the dead but just older, you need to go on your button mashing perfectly timed button pressing rampage. Can you complete your quest without being an old man? It's an interesting mechanic for sure, and you get to retain / unlock skills as you age - and then can cheat by finding x amount of shrines to make you younger again. The art style is very cool too, but for me the game feels... repetitive. Like I'm just getting older while doing the same thing over and over again. Oh yeah, I am! :P

Kiri-ai: The Duel

A very efficient little game once you get the rules down.

This 16 card game represents a fight between two samurai on a cliff. One card is the battle field, a series of pips along the center with either short or long sets (flip side). Each player has a samurai card which shows their stance (Heaven or Earth), if they are injured (on the flip side) and you place this at an angle on a pip to show where you are standing.   

On a turn each player will play two cards and then take back the second one, leaving the other card as "exhausted" for the next round. Repeat until one or both samurai take two hits. Movement always happens first, followed by attacks which can only succeed depending on your stance. Heaven hits 2 pips away, Earth hits 1 pip away. Both have a stab that hits right beside you.

There are also 3 special "one shot" move cards which get randomly assigned to each player each match, with the extra sitting out face down. Two dual hitters and a counter attack (you hit me, but not really - I hit you!). Excellent card quality and container which is an old style Japanese coin purse that you just tie with a string which oozes theme. The rules and imagery might take a bit of getting used to but otherwise its very cool, easy to setup and put away AND is very affordable. Highly recommended!

Mafia Mamma and Furies (S1)

Shows with organized crime.

Mafia Mamma

In this comedy, a regular American housewife (played by Toni Collette) is invited to the funeral of her only relative, a distant grandfather in Italy and subsequently inherits the name and boss position of her mafia house. Stereotypical mafia funny business ensues, making it hard to take any of them seriously when this regular lady, who is more focused on getting laid for most of the film, literally does everything better than them. I suppose I'm not the intended audience for this one. It was fine, but not recommended.

Furies

In this French series, a regular student vows vengeance against the crime families main enforcer, the titular "Fury", when her parents are gunned down. Nice premise with interesting complications, funny interludes and some decent action scenes. Definitely entertaining but the main cast wears layers of plot armor. Sure, character x is a bad ass but if you are standing in a narrow corridor I expect you to get hit (or at least grazed, or maybe just have a hair snap) by automatic gun fire from your enemies. Works much better when both parties forget to bring firearms. Still a pretty fun ride, and I'll be watching season 2 when it comes out.

Lord of the Rings: Duel for Middle-earth

Two players fight for the One Ring!

In this game one player takes the role of the Fellowship (has more gold at start) while the other is Sauron (goes first), and all you are doing each turn for each of the three rounds is either picking up a valid card from the tableau, selling a card from the tableau or building a fortress (which costs a lot but gives you a bunch of stuff). Blue cards move Frodo and Sam towards Mt. Doom or move the Nazgul towards the hobbits, gold cards give you money, green cards give you skills and friends (with possible special abilities), and red cards let you do army stuff on the small map.

Some cards cost skills to buy (or in later rounds, have "chain" markers meaning you can get them for free IF you already got the first part of the chain earlier). For each skill you are missing, just pay gold. There are three ways to win: complete the "race" track - Nazgul eats Frodo or Frodo reaches Mt. Doom and their player wins. If you collect a fellowship of six different races (green cards) you win. If you have a soldier on each zone on the map you win.

Simple game that so far Sauron has always won in my group, and most of the time it boils down to stopping your opponent from getting the card that he's going to win with. Nice components, with just a little bit of setup time.

All Quiet on the Western Front and American Primeval (S1)

High death count: check!

All Quiet on the Western Front

This German World War I flick focuses on a young German lad who joins the war and how he and his buddies quickly go from "yeah, this'll be great" to "WTF am I doing here" in the trenches against the French. Nice cinematography and effects that really focus on the dirty and sometimes insane business that is war. It goes a bit long but we were definitely entertained throughout the film. My only problem is I couldn't really feel for the protagonist and his crew because they all chose to be there.

American Primeval (S1)

In this (so far) one season, six episode Western, a woman and her child need to get from point A to point B without dying of dysentery, being caught by bounty hunters, scalped by the natives, ambushed by brigands, or fighting against a Mormon army. What? Yes, you heard me. This really portrays the Wild West as super wild with high levels of violence and at least one mandatory death per episode. The script is pretty wild too, with characters passing the idiot ball around regularly. If you don't think about the "(s)he should have done [something smart] instead", you can give this one a try.

Redacted Beholder

Weaker copies of already existing games.

Redacted

In a distant space prison, something's gone wrong and not only are the convicts loose - they've mutated into monsters! You play as a guard trying to reach the only escape shuttle on board, but good luck with that because this is an action roguelike in the style of Hades - and what your early guards die trying to unlock are meant to assist your later guards with better gear and skills. You have some choice when picking which way to go with the signs that indicate which currency you might find there but almost always there will be enemies. If you liked Hades then you might like this one too as it plays very similarly. If you haven't played Hades then go play that instead as it is much better.

Beholder

In this game you play as a humble servant to an authoritarian state in your role as landlord who must also spy on his tenants, and if you don't then you and your family will pay the price! *shakes fist* Well funny story. I couldn't seem to do the very first mission because the guy I was meant to spy on never appeared thus making me lose the game. Hmm, if you can't find a bug at the start of your game I don't have high hopes for testing in the later parts. Don't waste your time with this garbage, you can play a similar and better game in "Papers, Please".

Uno Stacko and Ra

Competitive board games involving wooden pieces.

Uno Stacko

While I don't enjoy the card versions of Uno, this is one I don't mind at all. It involves creating a wooden tower with three planks making each floor in a cross thatch design, then on your turn removing one from "not the top" and then placing it on the top, without making the whole thing fall. The last person who successfully does that is the winner!

Does that sound like Jenga? Because it is Jenga, just with a few uno rules. Each plank has a color and a number and on your turn the piece you move must either be of that color or same number (and there are a few special tiles thrown in). Quite a fun little dexterity game that comes with a cardboard thing to help you restack the tower faster. Recommended!

Ra

This is a highly lauded bidding game where players simply bid on lots to increase their claim of ancient Egypt before time runs out. And does time run out REALLY FAST. On your turn you can do three things: pull an auction tile from a bag to add to the lot, use a previously won god tile to take one tile from the lot, and call "RA" (though some auction tiles call RA for you, and advance the timer).

Once RA is called its auction time. The person to the left has one chance to bid on the lot or pass and so on until it gets back to the RA caller who gets a final bid or pass (though if you called RA and everyone else passed, then you must bid). Your currency are predetermined sun disks which you then leave on the auction grounds for the next lot as part of the prize, which means in the next epoch (out of 3) one of your opponents might have won that to use against you!

Adding extra things like, "if you don't have any of these tiles or have the fewest of these tiles you lose points" and "all these tiles won't score unless you have this tile" adds spice. Especially since those tiles go away / are lost at the end of each round / Epoch, after you score. Good design, but I still need to play it more... currently it seems like newbies will always get thrashed with no way to recover.

Hell Let Loose and Dark and Darker

Games of killing each other.

Hell Let Loose

This is a 50 v 50 multiplayer army first person shooter set in World War II. Unlike the previous PvP games I've been trying where there are no servers to play this one was the opposite: most of the servers are full! I did manage to finally get in to experience the pretty decent game play which pits teams in historical battles and lets you drive vehicles without going to the ridiculous stunt level of the Battlefield series. Your class determines your (somewhat editable) load out and what vehicles you can drive (tanks need a tank crew person), and bullets are one hit killers: you'll probably never see who shot you (though bleeding out is lengthy enough for a medic to reach you).

That's a pretty accurate simulator right there, though it obviously can be a frustrating one. Squads with good leadership will dominate, and the leader is usually the guy with the binoculars because it is really hard to spot people in the distance. If you like this sort of game and don't mind the fatal bullets, definitely give this one a try.

Dark and Darker

A different sort of PvP game for sure, in this one you make your fantasy character class and then can optionally team up with up to two players to enter a dungeon to loot its spoils. The kicker is there are other adventuring parties in there, and they aren't friendly! I think the term for this now is extraction PvP? Loot the dungeons, loot the monsters, loot the other guys and get out when you find the exit portals which appear at some point late in the match. I went in as a solo rogue and was surprised with the amount of things I could interact with. Furniture, traps, light sources, giant spiders biting my face... Unlike Hell Let Loose you will definitely see what kills you in this game.

And no, it wasn't the spiders - it was some cleric player who came around the corner with a flame strike. :P Definitely interesting and this time frustrating for a different reason: you don't escape, you don't get any loot but anything you used is gone. PvP isn't my cup of tea but there's better odds of me trying this one again than Hell Let Loose.

Lioness and Landman

Taylor Sheridan continues to create entertaining stuff.

Lioness

This so far two season show stars Zoe Saldana as a CIA case officer who likes to yell that is in charge of the special "Lioness" task force / kill squad which involves her hiring / training up women to then infiltrate friends and family of the target followed by ultimately killing said target. There's a fair bit of action each episode with a strong tendency towards torture violence and nudity, which combined with explosions is one of my favorite combos! Obviously I'm enjoying this one even though the operators don't move as cleanly as those in Seal Team (TV). If you like easy on the brain violence then you might enjoy this one too.

Landman

The oil business is what keeps the world turning and this show focuses on one of the people that makes that happen: the "Landman" (played by Billy Bob Thornton) who buys up leases and manages them. If that sounds boring then you're in for a heck of a surprising first episode as a drug cartel happens to be one of those leases he needs to balance. It also gives a nice peek into how the oil industry runs and all that heavy/dirty stuff is off set by the ridiculous hi jinks of his family and friends. Recommended, and it will probably be more palpable than Lioness to more viewers.

Dredge and LOTR: Return to Moria

Games about inventory management!

Dredge

This was a surprise for me: a fishing game that managed to hold my attention for over two weeks! But its not really just fishing is it? Each critter has a slightly different reeling in mini-game which goes a long way to keeping it interesting and some only come out at night and in certain parts of the map. Then you also need to upgrade your boat which gives you more space not only for fish, but to also get different rod types so that you can fish deeper or in more tangled environments.

The best part is the game isn't really about fishing at all. Bad stuff lurks in the dark depths, and making sure they don't get you while intentionally going into their territory is quite the blast. Awesome game - recommended!

Lord of the Rings: Return to Moria

The dwarves have decided to reclaim their greatest territory long fallen to evil forces and when trying to get in (because speaking "friend" to enter isn't working anymore) you (and possibly your co-op allies) are the only one(s) to make it in with basically nothing.

That's ok because this is a crafting survival game and there's loads of material just lying around for you to make everything you need like axes, pickaxes, weapons, armor, food, and your very own base. Good luck trying to carry all of it at once though! Excellent idea with some items being overpowered (insta wooden platforms to avoid enemies? Yes please!) and other things just being stupid like cooking forces you to wait 30 seconds while making a pick axe is instantaneous. Huh? As a player you really feel that idle time.

Alas that type of game loop is boring for me but if you enjoy things where you need to build up to advance a bit then harvest and build up again then this is a game for you! Literal walls of "you need the next level of pick axe" determine how far you can scavenge so enjoy the long dark of Moria!

Wonka and The Little Mermaid

Movies with singing!

Wonka

A young Willy Wonka (Timothée Chalamet) arrives in a city with the hopes of fulfilling his chocolate making dreams but finds difficulty breaking in especially due to his lack of money and his zero sense in being street wise. At the same time he is a freaking magician who can seemingly conjure whatever he requires (except money it seems). Funny in a cute way and while the plot has no surprises I was surprised with the decent musical numbers. After seeing Timothée so dour and possibly bored in Dune: Part 2 it was great to see him in a completely opposite role. This kid friendly movie won't be for everyone but I certainly enjoyed it more than I thought I would.

The Little Mermaid (2023)

The woke live action version of the Disney classic still keeps most of the same songs and plot with Halle Bailey starring as Ariel, a mermaid who longs to be a human and can only do so by being someone's bitch using her strong independence skills. There's one shot where she crawls on a rock like a crab (which has ruined all mermaids for us honestly) and screams out despite trying to be hidden which is really off putting, and another where the human prince who is forbidden to get on a ship suddenly teleports onto one mid-song which is jarring. Is it better or worse than the animated one? Can't say as I haven't seen the cartoon one in years. All I know is I don't want to watch this one again with its weak acting and singing. If you need a Little Mermaid hit with better music quality and a much shorter run time have a listen to the talented Voiceplay instead (thanks Jim).

Ghostrunner II and Hot Wheels Unleashed

Gotta keep moving!

Ghostrunner II

The katana wielding cyborg ninja is back to do more parkour across the futuristic city scape while avoiding all the single hit kills that would force you to repeat sections of the game. At least most of the bad guys only require one hit to kill too! Awesome graphics like last time and I have to admit, I did get into this one a bit more than the first game especially since they dialed the difficulty right down at the start. However, as I predicted I eventually reached a parkour from hell segment that just wasn't fun to keep repeating and so I dropped this from my play list. Not recommended.

Hot Wheels Unleashed

I usually dislike racing games but this one did manage to hold my attention for a little bit. In it you race toy cars from the Hot Wheels collection and even picking the fastest car with zero maneuverability I had no problem with steering and getting enough boost to do the gravity defying loops and jumps featured on each starting track. I also found it cute that you need to be mindful of things like a spider shooting webs as you pass by which slows you down, and the small mini map in the bottom corner actually lets you see where cars situated behind you are. Sharp graphics and decent controls make for a game racers should check out. Thumbs up!

Deadpool & Wolverine and Dune: Part 2

Sequels to good movies!

Deadpool & Wolverine

After an encounter with the TVA who reveal his universe is going to end due to the lack of an anchor being, a retired Wade Wilson (played by Ryan Reynolds) goes off to find a replacement Wolverine (Hugh Jackman). Shenanigans ensue with numerous cameos and jokes that hopefully people still get many years from now. As usual its very rude, quite funny to the point of ridiculousness, and action packed using the tried and true "if nothing funny or emotional is happening, a fight breaks out" technique. Recommended if you are a fan of Ryan's Deadpool and/or Hugh's Wolverine. On the flip side, if you disliked any of the previous Deadpool movies you will definitely not like this one too. :P

Dune: Part 2

Hiding with the desert folk after the destruction of his house, Paul Atredies (played by Timothée Chalamet) learns their ways while also having a vision that specifically tries to avoid. But no, his allies convince him to do the thing anyway and then possibly get upset after he does the thing that he warned them he didn't want to do. Really though, most of this 2 hour and 46 minute film is an absolute snooze fest. Visually nice if you can stay awake, but really they needed to cut off some fat from the run time. Easiest one is the whole bit where group A ambushes a harvester, killing their guards and then use a long ranged rocket to destroy the machine. Five seconds later, they just use a long ranged rocked to destroy the next machine. Did we really need that previous prolonged action scene? Nope. Does it change anything that they destroyed the harvester? Nope. Do I recommend this movie? Nope.

Stardew Valley: the Board Game and Mysterium

Board games where you need to communicate!

Stardew Valley: the Board Game

Much like the digital game in this cooperative board game of 1 to 4 players, you have inherited a run down farm from your grandpa and must restore all the rooms (by completing random quests) and fulfilling his life long goals (more random quests) all in the span of one year (tracked by event cards)! On your turn you can  move (and collect nearby resources which replenish each season) or do an action based on where you are. 

Buy seeds, water plants, make friends, dig in the mine (need to find those stairs!), fish in three different spots etc. One player can get more moves by getting a spouse (some NPCs are marriageable) who can get you an extra action and you'll probably need it because right from the get go, you need to plan carefully what you're doing and work as a team. This does make it susceptible to quarter backing but as each player has a "job" they're good at it's usually an easy plan: the miner mines, fisher fishes, etc. Good quality components and a pretty good game! Thumbs up!

Mysterium

There's been a murder and as everyone knows the best way to solve it is with a seance!? In this 2-7 cooperative board game one player is a ghost who knows all the answers but can only communicate by giving out awesomely illustrated but often useless picture cards which they randomly draw while the rest are psychics who each need to interpret said cards to correctly identify THEIR three things - suspect / location / weapon in 7 turns. If even one fails, everyone loses at this point. 

If they all made it then the ghost picks which set of suspect / location / weapon is the "true" one and gives 1-3 more cards (depending on "psychic power mechanic", and if players aren't gaming the system this will likely be 1 card) for everyone to secretly vote for it. If the "true" one gets the most votes, everyone wins! Yay! This is a really interesting one to play, and the hardest role is that of the ghost who will likely be cursing each turn with the garbage cards he or she can use as clues. Expect to feel mentally exhausted after a game or two of this one. :P

Red Sparrow Outside the Wire

Movies with manipulation.

Red Sparrow

A famous Russian ballerina (played by Jennifer Lawrence) is manipulated by her uncle into joining the SVR Sparrow school where she learns the art of sexpionage to use against their USA counter parts. The story is a rather dark one but good, and while there is a bit of violence here, there is obviously much more in terms of nudity (full frontal) and sex. Worth a watch but I'm not sure I'd want to watch it again as the content is a bit "heavy" and the run time a little long.

Outside the Wire

In a future with robot soldiers supporting their human counterparts, war still rages in Ukraine. A drone operator who disobeyed an order is sent to the front lines as punishment to work in a two man team with his superior, Captain Leo (played by Anthony Mackie) who rather quickly reveals he is an experimental android and their mission is to find "lost nuclear silos" in the region. Uh. Really? You have freaking robots, drones, satellites and you need to walk around ask where these things are? The drone operator could have used a stronger actor too. That aside there's an ok movie in here, but its not one you need to rush out and see.

Kill Knight and Wizard of Legend

Games about fighting in little rooms.

Kill Knight

You are a knight armed with a sword and guns who drops down into some randomly generated tiny arena to see how many monsters you can kill. Time your dodges, sword the baddies to get more ammo, and obliterate them with your ultimate skill once its charged up enough: basically the more you kill, the stronger you get. Alas it doesn't look like there's much else happening in this game which just expects you to button mash the boredom away. Not recommended.

Wizard of Legend

You are a wizard invited to the Chaos trials which consists of randomly generated areas that you need to get through to become a Wizard of Legend. In it you'll run into shops, mini bosses and of course - rooms that lock you in with a variety of bad guys that you have to beat to advance. There's more customization from the get go than Kill Knight, but the controls aren't very good (though to be fair, BOTH games recommend using a controller which I did not). Even if they were it would suffer from the same problem as Kill Knight though, which is repetitiveness. If you want a better version of both these games, play Hades instead.

Plane and Carry On

Movies about airports and aircraft.

Plane

In an effort to save fuel costs, a commercial airliner attempts to shortcut through a storm and soon finds themselves emergency landing on a small Philippine island controlled by violent rebels. Good thing their pilot and main protagonist is played by Gerard Butler though, because he's literally the deus ex machina that keeps this unintentionally hilarious film going. While there's an ok amount of action the plot is silly, the main bad guy who gives the orders can barely speak proper Tagalog, and the whole emergency landing thing near the start should have been a crash and burn instead. Only recommended if you are a huge Gerard Butler fan, otherwise don't board this one.

Carry On

Taron Egerton stars as a "going nowhere" lowly airport security guy who finally gets a baggage scanning job only to be manipulated by a bad guy who pressures him into letting a particular carry on bag to be let through. This film actually has lots of decent action scenes (and soooo much running) as well as hilarious exchanges with the bad guy but its main flaw is the massive logic leaps it uses to actually get the bad guy's Batman gambit started. If the protagonist had a spine from the start the movie would be over much quicker, but no - he has to grow that as the movie progresses. Other than that it's an ok watch, but only if you've got nothing better to see.

World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King (board game) and Uno No Mercy

Games of wrath!

World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King

In this 1-5 player cooperative game, each player is a character from the World of Warcraft setting out to stop the Lich King who is spawning stationary ghouls and up to three abominations who actively pursue players. He also wanders around making things hurt more if he's in the region. To win, the team must complete three random quests (out of 9) and then complete a final quest at the Lich King's castle by rolling dice and maybe having cards with the right symbol to help push the progress tracker along. 

Combat plays much the same way. Players lose if the despair marker reaches the end of its track: moving twice for any player "killed" and once for each figurine you needed to spawn but have no more of. But how does the game actually play? Almost exactly like Pandemic. 7 hand card limit, do four actions per turn, ghouls spawn in location cards drawn, bad cards wait in player card pile to make things worse. I do quite like that you don't need to do the five of the same cards business this time around which makes it different enough to be interesting for me, but I also think it makes it much easier than any of the other Pandemic games in my collection thus far. :P

Update: Playing will all the scourge cards puts it at an ok difficulty level, always go ahead and do that!

Uno No Mercy

This competitive card game is just like Uno in that you want to be the first one to get rid of all your cards and have to say "Uno" once you're down to one. The no mercy bit comes from all the +plus cards in the deck, like +2 means the next player draws two and loses their turn - BUT the +plus cards stack, so if you have a plus card you can just put that on, and on, and on, until someone needs to pick up a +32 or something. Also, if you ever get 25 or more cards in your hand, you're out which opens up another path to victory: kill all your opponents. Expect tears if played with younger kids. Not the type of game for me.

Yellowstone and Territory

TV Series that depict cattle wrangling as a tough business.

Yellowstone

The original series from which the shows 1883 and 1923 spun off from, again the focus of this drama is on the Dutton family and their controlling patriarch (played by Kevin Costner) who fiercely fights off any and all challengers to his substantial property (in the modern day, just to be clear). Through its five seasons we get to see a tiny bit of character growth from a just a few of the characters but the plot, acting and scenery is good enough to command attention anyway. I quite liked all the cowboy parts which really didn't need to have such a focus, but it was something different and really cool. It also helps that I do like horses. :P Anyway, big thumbs up for this one and an easy one to recommend.

Territory

This currently one season show feels like the Australian copy of Yellowstone. A family who owns the largest cattle station led by an angry patriarch (played by Robert Taylor but the main protagonist is his daughter in law, played by Anna Torv) has to fight off competitors and companies trying to carve parts of their land away. While the stakes feel much lower and there are far fewer horses (most rustling is done with dogs and buggies) its still an alright watch. Especially as there are only six episodes (so far).

Witch it and Deceive Inc

Multiplayer hide and seek.

Witch It

This is a multiplayer "prop" hide and seek game where one team plays as witches who can fly in short bursts and transform into "props" (tables, chairs, cheese, etc) to hide against the other team composed of potato throwing hunters. There are slight game format variations but for the hunters to win they have to find and KO all the witches before time runs out while the witches who have no real way to fight back but only win if time runs out. Cute concept though the graphics are intentionally poor. Multiplayer wise there were only a few lobbies open that were waiting for more players. Either the other lobbies were all full and running games or there was hardly anyone on when I checked.

Deceive Inc.

Is a spy version of the hide and seek game where everyone can camouflage themselves as NPCs in a level. Usually each spy or each team has a goal of retrieving a well guarded item and then extracting, so using the camo actually helps them traverse zones without getting NPC aggro but as all players can attack I don't see how this will always just devolve into a shooting fest. This one has sharp graphics but zero lobbies available to play in when I checked. That's what happens when you rely on other players to be the games content.

The Penguin and Honey Bunny

TV Series that additional content to their respective franchises.

The Penguin

This crime drama is as dark as "The Batman" movie which it continues from. Here we follow Ozwald Cobb (wonderfully played by Colin Farrell) as he weasels his way from being a lowly underling to the crime boss better known as the titular Penguin. While there aren't so many action scenes the plot, acting and effects are very well done making this so far single season show really easy to recommend. You don't really have to know anything about Batman, Penguin or the movie preceding it to enjoy it either. Big thumbs up!

Honey Bunny

This is actually the second spin off for Citadel, but unlike the first one this is a prequel series set in India and they won't let you forget it with all the synth music tracks and silly Indian humor peppered through out. In it we follow a struggling actress who gets into the spy game and while there are some good action sequences in here the story itself is weaker than its peers. Combined with the fact that its all happened in the past makes it a bit of a non starter. Feel free to skip this one.