Borderlands 3: The Bluehairs

[Part of the Wasted Land story]

While the overweight mechanic Ellie repairs the Sanctuary III, mostly damaged by the idiot droid Claptrap, ship doctor and artifact specialist Dr. Tannis determines where the map is pointing to: a planet called Athenas. Luckily Lilith knows of an ally on that planet: her siren friend Maya who openly admits that they are guarding a piece of a vault key... and that they are under attack from Maliwan forces who are after the same thing!

Maya's also a cosplay favourite it seems.

Maya fights through the hi-tech Maliwan soldiers (the backpacks always seem to be their weak spot) to get to her idiot brat apprentice Ava who was busy not guarding a library as ordered and instead clearing a ratch infestation from the local brewery.

After a long and arduous climb (this is such a grindy and poorly designed level and is in an awkward place in the actual game) the blue haired pair then manage to reach the high temple, make heavy use cover to defeat the Maliwan raid leader and collect the key fragment before beaming up to Sanctuary.

Double Cosplay: Dragon Crusaders and Dragons of Camelot

Dragons of Camelot

What happens -after- King Arthur dies.

The death of Camelot's king (and that most of his knights have been disbanded) provides Morgana the prime opportunity to summon dragons and take the place by force. While the dragons are pretty cool CGI wise and the locations for filming are pretty great there are a lot of things that bring this movie down, and for me the number one reason being the quality of props. Yes, that hurts more than the subpar acting!

In short, it looks like a cosplayer fair with mismatching armor and all too clean attire and both the "knights" of Camelot (very loosely used here) and Morgana's troops have no uniforms what-so-ever. Also, if you have an archer type character it might pay to actually have that person know at least some archery - like, oh I don't know... being able to properly draw the bowstring back to at least their chin?

No one is impressed by your archery.

I was also mildly amused by a clear stand in for Morgana in one of the opening scenes where the editor did everything to not show her face, splicing her (solo) closeup footage in later which is ridiculous because she's in a completely different room. My favorite character is one of her evil captains though, who gets the pranciest white horse of all time. He is tasked with pursuing the good guys but is very careful to not actually catch up with them at any point. Alas, as good (I'm being generous) as the dragons are there's not much reason to watch this and I can only give it one cosplayer out of five.

~~~

Dragon Crusaders

Featuring dragons, crusaders, gargoyles and pirates!

If you watched Dragons of Camelot then you will notice right away a lot of the cool locations reused here. Also, while it is still possibly the same cosplayer group used in this picture they are more believable with the dirty attire and better acting. The bow guy in particular is pretty cool though some of his archery is questionable (not as bad as archer in the previous movie). There's also a short, kick-ass chick who definitely brings the fight choreo up a notch and is perhaps a good example of a standard D&D halfling fighter. Some fight scenes make use of oddly cut segments though, which doesn't do this film any favours.

Dirt = Authenticity.

The CGI is not as good as the other movie, but it is passable enough and props to them for using gargoyles too. Where this film falls over bad is the story itself. A band of knights being chased by an unseen army (seriously) decide to try help some random people being attacked by pirates. In the process they get cursed by a peasant (LOL) and can only be freed by some bad wizard who happens to control a bunch of dragons, and possibly is one of the dragons himself. He also is a pretty decent swordsman, archer and cavalier. What? Also the pirate speak in this film comprises entirely of grunts and yelling incomprehensibly. Awesome.

Pity, it's like if you took the good aspects of the two films you might actually get something more worth while, but ultimately this too has nothing much going for it and I give it one cosplayer out of five.

Tropico 3: The Secret Police

[This is part of my Tropico 3 Journal!]

After the failed assassination attempt on my life, I decided to build not only a police station but an immigration station to try control the flow of people onto the island. This way there would be less rebels coming in, and certainly less rebels escaping! I also decided to create a secret police force and chose their base as the immigration station, but since that meant it stopped doing it's original function I was forced to build another immigration station right next to it. Hopefully no one noticed...

Because all of these people are totally under the radar. (Photo by baketsuki)

The construction of a foreign embassy also fixed matters with USSR as their warships departed, leaving me to deal with the constant nuisance that was the rebel threat. I again had to close the jewellery factory due to bomb threats and fought off another group attacking a gold mine (got injured this time to a grenade). My secret police actually managed to capture the rebel bomber which was great as it gave me someone to execute. They also had a hot lead on the assassin but during the chase it was they who got killed, leaving me to hire more experts from abroad to fill their now empty and bloodied shoes.

At the same time I'm trying to meet the demands of the populace, giving them churches, cathedrals, cabarets, schools, markets, restaurants and newspapers which somehow increase liberty. I also gain the favour of the military, building a second base and armory. Increasing the respect of the general public for me just angers rebel leader Enrique as that assassin again comes after me. With a lack of funds and forces to counteract this I tell the secret police to get my double ready. Soon enough my look alike is dead and the killer is again in the wind. I'm going to have to do something about that.