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.