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.

Umbrella Academy (TV) and The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare

Not fighting fair.

Umbrella Academy (4 Seasons)

This show focuses on a dysfunctional superhero "family" adopted by a domineering and eccentric billionaire father who uses them to fight crime. Alas after a botched mission they all go their separate ways for years until their hated father figure dies. It's as this point they discover they have to stop the apocalypse (or, a chain of them as it turns out). Some funny bits, some cool bits, and some decent fight scenes pepper the very weird plot so it is entertaining for the spectacle if nothing else. Acting wise I'd say Aidan Gallagher is the stand out performer here and easily steals the majority of the scenes he's in.

The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare

It is World War II and the British have had enough of the Nazi's dominating the seas thanks to their U-boats, so they assemble a small team (with members played by Henry Cavill and Alan Ritchson to name a few) to go an unsanctioned undercover mission to hit the U-boat supply station on a Spanish controlled island. On one side it's a very humorous take with Nazi's being terrible shots and having so many of them as fodder but there are a few brief bits of torture just to reinforce that the Nazi's are the very bad guys. Ultimately a movie to turn your brain off for, as that's the best way to enjoy it.

The Ice Road and All the Light We Cannot See

Two conditions you probably shouldn't be driving in? :P

The Ice Road

When an accident gets some people trapped in a mine, it is up to down to a few truckies including one played by Liam Neeson to sign up for a dangerous drive against time across a frozen lake while hauling a heavy load of equipment to save the trapped men before their air runs out. Since the writers figured that was too boring, they also decided to make it an action movie which results in some very poor brawling sequences, poor effects, and a questionable plot that is teeming with inconsistencies. It's not very good but it might still appeal for people that like watching big rigs doing things they shouldn't normally be doing.

All the Light We Cannot See

This four episode mini-series follows a blind French girl and a German soldier who have a shared passion for radios during World War II. While there are good sets, acting, effects and an interesting enough story, there's a heavy use of flashbacks (*bum-bummmm noise*) and in some parts you can actually feel the plot armor on some characters. Had this been told chronologically I think I would have liked it better. I mean, all the bits are filmed anyway for the audience but how they are revealed is mostly when someone asks a character about their past. Instead of having a plot that spans however many years, the entire story (the part that matters where all the "stakes" are) just takes place in a few days.

Only in occasions where someone is discovering the past through unrelated characters should flashbacks be considered, like in The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar. Anyway, that's just my little nitpick. It's still enjoyable as it is.

Sniper Elite: The Board Game

This World War 2 game (which comes from the successful digital game franchise), one player is an allied sniper who is kitted out with cool items and uses a separate board with a dry-erase marker to stealthily move around the map while up to three others control the three squads of defenders (nine soldiers all up) to defend the 10 objectives on the board for 9 or 18 turns (the turn track goes back to 1 if the sniper completes one objective) OR wound the sniper twice. The sniper just has to reach two predetermined objectives (hidden card draw) to win.

Obviously the sniper player has to be honest, remembering not to move through walls or defenders, to inform defenders if some soldiers heard a noise (if they moved quickly) or declaring if a shot resulted in a kill. Shooting is rather interesting as the sniper has to declare how many tokens they are pulling out of a bag. To score a hit, they must pull enough aim tokens equivalent to the distance of their target otherwise its a miss. Conversely if they draw two noise tokens, they must immediately give away their position! Just like when they complete their first objective!

Each squad of defenders also has one leader who has a two use per game special power. Among them are the medic can make sure the soldiers in his squad don't die when shot, the kennel master can put down some barky dogs, and the scout teleport his units across the map!? There's also a German sniper officer who can also use the sniper's shot bag.

When we played two players (one sniper/one had all the defenders), it really felt the sniper had the advantage as they won three out of four times. When we played with four (one sniper/three with one defender squad each), the sniper got TROUNCED three out of three times! I found it quite fun to play both and am confident this is better than my similar Jaws game. That said I'll only recommend it to people who enjoy this sort of thing, because it can feel very lopsided at times.

Eurovision 2023 - The Winner Takes it All

I was late to watch this years Eurovision, hosted by runners up the UK for their awesome entry last year and because Ukraine, last year's actual winners, are still fighting against Russia. That recent almost revolt could have changed the battlefield but as usual, the easiest way to deal with mercs is with money so that's no longer happening which is an underwhelming result.

Underwhelming is also the word I'd use to describe this years Eurovision. There were the mandatory anti-war entries and sexy eye candy, a random pirate shanty, a flute dwarf, some German heavy metal, and a hard core cha cha song about getting drunk. My pick didn't even get close to beating the winner who intentionally made her song sound like one from Abba. Indeed the best performances were ones not even competing, my favorite being this one from the first semi final.

Unlike other years where there were songs DL or myself would actually be tempted to learn, this years batch has no such song.

Waiting for Duviri: The Fourth Fighters

After all that adventure, it's time for battle!

Multiversus

This side scrolling platform brawler sees characters from the Warner Brother's IP duking it out because kids love violence! There are a bunch of attacks per character and the idea is that as a fighter gets more damage accumulated, the worse the knock back is - because that's the only way to "kill" people - knocking them off the screen. Definitely a strange one as Shaggy can beat Superman. All but one fighter starts off locked but there's a rotation of free to play ones. My question is... why? When looking for a match I could only fight against an AI. 

Not all crossovers are a good idea.

 

Recent Update: This is now doing a surprise shut down until 2024.

Knockout City

This PvP game revolves around futuristic dodge ball on a 3D field, and you simply score a knockout by hitting someone twice. While there's other extra things like everyone has gliders, sometimes the balls explode with goo etc, the core mechanic is quite good and I got into a 3 vs 3 match really quickly. It's a bit weak on the character customization front which probably explains all the cross dressers in that match, but it was fun nonetheless. Sadly this will be closing on June 6th this year so you only have until then to try it out.

Divine Knockout

Operates exactly like Multiversus except the characters are various "gods" (and King Arthur for some reason), have less attack variety but gain some easy to use cool down abilities and the game play is 3D like Knockout City. This is a vast improvement from Multiversus - and again I quickly got into a 3 vs 3 player arena which means its quite active! While I personally prefer Knockout City to this (because it uses HP hearts instead of "ring out" KOs), if you like knock out games, this one should be on your radar.

First Class Trouble

Six players must find key cards to escape from a space station before the air runs out, but two of them are murderous androids! Unlike Among Us this plays in real time and the environment is beautiful. It's also highly recommended to have a mic so you can talk to people in your vicinity. While the androids can murder people by themselves, two players can also cooperatively murder anyone. It took a little while to find a match, but when I did I was victim number 1 (no mic man lol) to a pair of bunny suited giggling schoolgirls. Yeah, I can see that happening. When you die, you can continue to remain in the match as a flying vacuum cleaner who can collect stuff and run virtual race courses in the area which I thought was funny. Better have a player group for this one, because solo is a hard sell (you'll always be the odd one/s out).

Tannenberg

Taking place in WWI it's Russia versus Germany with soldiers who literally can't hold their Mosin-Nagant's steady, even when standing still so expect to die a lot in one shot while trying to take capture points from the AI hordes who fill in the slots of empty players. While I assume this FPS simulation was made for accuracy, I couldn't help but think the entire time: the old Battlefield series does this better, and that one has vehicles!

Eximius: Sieze the Frontline

This futuristic FPS has soldiers capturing a different variety of currency building points, which they then can spend on things like calling battle suits to drop in from space. :O No, their not mecha or Warframes, just armor (though there are vehicles). Somehow this is worse than Tannenberg, with floaty movement and enemies who can sprint strafe while shooting. Ergh.

October 2022: Day 250 of the war

The Ukrainian "advance" (to reclaim territory) continues, inspiring the people of Kherson, a city captured early on by the Russians, to no longer accept their rubles. To be fair, it might just be because rubles are not worth much these days with all the sanctions.

Their opponent, President Putin, has had an explosive birthday month for after being angered by the Crimea bridge explosion on/near his birthday, his forces conducted a retaliation bombardment that took down a third of the Ukranian power facilities in two days. They also have an interesting method of recouping their lost people by sending captured Ukranian kids to be adopted by Russians, some of whom publicly stating said kids should be drowned and/or burned alive.

The Russians have also found allies in Belarus and Iran, the latter of which is doing some serious multitasking by killing protestors with religious fashion police. They're also making strides for an alliance with North Korea, who are busy shooting missiles over Japan for the shits and giggles.

In true Crouching Tiger or Hidden Dragon style, China continues to bide its time as Xi Jinping secured his third term in power. Is it worrying that they might have "police" stations worldwide where they can drag you in and beat you up? Maybe?

Germans have proven indifference is just as effective as beatings though, as these not so smart scientists discovered when they protested for climate change. They were simply left in the sticky situation they got themselves in and were proven to be the hypocritical morons they actually are.

Finally, at 50 days, the shortest serving UK PM has finished her low% speed run successfully crashing their economy. Good job?

Most Viewed Posts:
September 2022: COVIDED
Paleo
The Night Cage

April 2022: Day 65 of the war

Or in Russian, it would be Day 65 of the special operation. There are now laws in which saying what the government doesn't want to hear or agree with a crime worth 15 years in prison. For similar reasons they've sent a wikipedia a hefty fine for spreading misinformation.

After losing a war ship, a few more tanks, being chased by drones, and being poisoned by locals, Russian forces were redeployed from attacking Kyiv to partake in a major offensive at Donbas to the East which includes the long besieged city of Mariupol. They have also started deploying dolphins, because that's apparently a thing that the USA does as well?

That's an artsy destroyed tank turret.

With the supposed default of the Ruble coming soon (speculated May 4th), Vladimir Putin has announced that the Russian lunar program will continue. Perhaps that's an additional reason why Russia is cutting the gas supply to both Poland and Bulgaria. To quote reddit: "Russia can't get enough fuel to drive a few hours to Kiev. Moon is a bit further".

Less people using Russian gas is exactly what the outnumbered Ukraine wants though, who are going hard on their propaganda with an excellent writing team - though sometimes a single picture can be pretty moving too. Support continues to flow for them from overseas, with Britain's Boris Johnson visiting Zelenskyy in Kyiv, USA's Joe Biden labeling Russia's action as genocide, France's Emmanuel Macron boosting weapons supplies for Ukraine after winning a second term of presidency over a pro-Russian opponent, hackers continuing to do their thing against Russia, and chef Jose Andres providing food to those he can reach.

It's also funny that Germany's Green party is saying the German government isn't being aggressive enough arming Ukraine. Again quoted from reddit: "Green party: Fuck it you know what would reduce emissions? BURNING MOSCOW *heavy metal riff*"

While I've been impressed at the use of drones in the theater of war, China is using them a different way - using mounted speakers to instruct the people locked down in Shanghai due to COVID to comply with the restrictions and "control the soul's desire for freedom". Sounds like another step towards a dark cyberpunk future! Actually, how is Hong Kong doing? Oh. Not great.

Most Viewed Posts:
Legends of Andor 2 - Legend 8 - The Storm Begins
In Sound Mind
Cris Tales

Dark (TV Series)

Probably should have been called "The Knot" instead.

The small town of Winden holds some dark secrets and a child going missing is just the beginning to the mystery. With a dark tone, solid production and a decent script - you're going to need to pay attention if you want to get the most out of this three season show.

Lesson number one: Don't talk to strangers.

As the title suggests it is quite dark and depressing for the most part too right from the get go, though there are some nice, if rare light hearted moments. Also the pace is pretty slow which might be off putting to some, especially in season three but at least it has a solid ending. Definitely a series I recommend and one I'm actually tempted to watch again. I give it three and a half caves out of five.

Borderlands 2: Up Yours Captain Trainwreck

[Part of the Wasted Land story]

Hahahah, the train went boom! Didn't help that we were on it at the time though. Lucky the soft snow was nice to crash in, and put out our fires! Commando DL and Gunzerker Jim seem to be ok too, though they keep saying I might have brain damage or somewhat. Like whaaaaat? No way man. I feel fine. Just a little... psycho.

The annoying Claptrap bot survived too (supposedly the last of his kind?), and offers to take us to the safety of "Sanctuary". I try to break it but it's too stupid to die. Even to the six armed yetis that try to eat it. After painting the yeti's red we reach a village. Of bandits. Or pirates. Bandit pirates! They welcome us with bullets! Afterwards only one resident left. Tells us we need to take the boat of the bandit pirate captain to sail to the mainland so that's where we go. We welcome plenty more bandit crazies with bullets and reach their toll gate, guarded by a German Super-heavy howitzer!

Still no match for DL's placable turret and Jim's dual wielding guns though. So much killing, the snow is all red hahahaha! Finally we reach the dragon ship that shoots fire everywhere and find the super bandit pirate captain who shrugs off bullets - so I carve him up with my buzz axe from behind, right in his ass. The screams are delicious!

That fire breathing ship is AWESOME though!

Insight: Sell junk at any opportunity as your carry space is very limited.

Civ VI: Gilgamesh Forever

[Part of the Civilization VI story]

It must have been a grim sight for the German knights as my army began advancing on their territory. With tanks, helicopters, a battleship that could fire missiles from their harbor and a bomber based in nearby Baghdad, their cities and the city-states allied to them felt the full force of Sumerian might and quickly fell prey to our superior firepower. Oh, and one village fell to the our allies in the city-state of Kandy. Yes, they got Kandy crushed by the knights of Kandy. Hahah!

Somehow the German capital was repelling us though, through the combined efforts of Gustave Eiffel, Alfred Nobel and general Napoleon Bonaparte - managing to destroy an entire tank column on their own. It was only when we dropped all the bombs and fired all the missiles at the same time did the city, and the civilization finally fall leaving me, the magnificent and most perfect King Gilgamesh, as ruler of the world... with my best buddy Enkidu!

"Kill more people Gil... Kill more..."

But this cannot be... my buddy Enkidu demands more WAR! More foes to defeat! I immediately instruct our top scientists to research space travel so that we can find enemies on other planets that I can conquer for the great crab! I must become the Master of the Universe!

Insight: Helicopters can't "fly" over water as they get packaged up in a transport ship  but are otherwise more free moving than planes.

Civ VI: Not so Great Wall

[Part of the Civilization VI story]

With only two other civilizations competing against me for world domination, I turn my attention to China next. These peaceful tea drinkers have setup quite a good defense with their alliance with the city-state of Jerusalem, making good use of their medieval cannons and cannonades to kill General Rani and many of her troops.

In response I rush the development of one of our new mobile weapon platform, the tank, researched both by Dmitri Mendelev and Albert Einstein with the monetary backing from the merchants Mary Katherine Goddard and Levi Strauss. This new vehicle of war crushes the Western Chinese border, right through their "not so great wall" while newly developed machine guns tear down the center. The Eastern border falls to my ancient battering rams backed by infantry, the same siege machines used against India so long ago.

Apparently guys with rifles plus an ancient wooden battering ram is just as good?

As China falls I am sad as I could not field our new flying machines against them too, not realizing they have a leash range attached to their respective aerodomes. No matter, I will find a way to use them on my final rival... Germany.

Insight: In later eras moving across the sea is faster than most land travel.

Civ VI: The World is Round

[Part of the Civilization VI story]

It takes many moons to research boat building and the wait is annoying to say the least. Fortunately the building is much faster as it is managed by the wealthy merchant John Jacob Astor. Now ready to begin the age of sailing, I send half my army West and the other half East in hopes of finding the remaining civilizations before they steal victory through some sly means.

Apart from some barbarian harassers, both fleets manage to find another mainland, or rather the same mainland as each other - simply landing on opposite ends of it proving that the world is round! We also quickly meet all the inhabitants of this land, the Germans who hold the frozen North, Arabia led Saladin on the Eastern shore, Scythia on the Western Shore, China in the South and Kongo with a massive territory right in the center.

I promptly executed all the morons in my kingdom who believed the Earth is flat.

Scythia is clearly the dangerous one as their religion, Zoroastrianism threatens to take over the globe faster than I can. The problem is she is allied with the Kongo, and all the city-states here obviously are controlled by local governments. Indeed, a problematic problem... for a lesser man. It's not a problem for me, because the solution is simple: ATTACK!

Insight: The more you research down the ship building tree the farther your land units can move into the water.

Black Orchestra

The only way to win is to assassinate Hitler!

This five person co-operative game takes place in Nazi Germany, and as one of the members of the titular Black Orchestra you must keep the Gestapo off your scent while you plan, prepare and ultimately try to kill Hitler - not easy given his military support and his penchant of hopping around the board. It's a game of planning and dice rolling, and while turns seem to go quickly the game does run quite a while. The expanding and contracting map which follows the seven event stages (which in turn follow the war) are a nice touch, and evading his lieutenants and building a conspiracy dice pool is a fun mini-game in itself.

For our first game, the plan was to ambush him in Prague. The team had gathered there and my wife managed to lure Hitler from the Eagles Nest. It was then up to DL, who rolled 6 dice (1 for passing the mandatory requirement, 2 for all of us being there, 1 for having a key item, 2 for using a one shot card) requiring three successes (Hitler's weakest in standard mode) - we had worked hard to reduce his military support for this very event! Alas it failed and he got away while we separated to collect more gear to try again.

Near the end of the war, we regrouped in Prague to try ambush him again - luring him from the Eagles Nest once more and DL this time had 8 dice requiring 4 successes. Still failed! Being reckless I opted to try snipe him instead, having 4 dice and requiring 4 successes. My attempt was so sneaky, no one even knew there was an attempt as I completely missed. They probably thought some local was duck hunting!

DL managed to stall Hitler's departure back to Berlin with a delaying card, but was subsequently jailed by the Gestapo soon after (game over if all of us are jailed simultaneously) and with the end of the war looming (which ends in failure for the team) I had one last chance to try kill Hitler with a hidden bomb. As my mom and wife had reduced his support again I now had three dice (as the bonus items were now either used or on map areas no longer accessible as the Germans had been pushed back from there) and required three successes... and I got him. We won with 2 turns left to spare!

They have a "win" card too!

This was quite a hard game to find, but it is definitely worth it. It does run a bit long though, and is comparable to Eldrich Horror in game-play time and dice difficulty. As a bonus, you might end up learning some history too! Highly recommend it, I give Black Orchestra 5 plots out of 5.

Insight: Hitler is weakest at the very start and at the very end of the war.

Today I Smiled: I forgot to post about Eurovision 2019!

Ah the perils of having lots of content prepared in advance. This one got quite buried and only now, months after the event do I remember that I wrote about it at all!

If you missed it, don't know about it, or just want to relive it - the Eurovision stage was lit this year up by musical acts of all sorts, including a quite bad one by Madonna. She might not look it but she's getting too old for this. It was a very weak performance.

Hatari won the award for weirdness this year!

This year the contestants had belters, awesome dancers, a guy in the shower, a giant chair, a singing dentist (who can't sing), a mandatory stripper act, bondage crew "arts group" Hatari (singing "Hate will Prevail!"), a sand artist, and Australia's Kate Miller-Heidke flying around on a pole. She should have won!

Of equal winning material was Sweden's John Lundvik, but as usual my picks never do well. Other acts I quite enjoyed were "Spirit in the Sky" from Norway, and the "S!sters" from Germany who deserved to place better than they did.

As a final bonus link: here's Kate Miller-Heidke with the same song again - but this time just with piano. I prefer it to her stage performance!

Escape from Colditz

Proving that castles were meant to keep people out, not in.

During World War II, Pat Ried was a POW in Colditz Castle and was one of the few to escape. It's based on his experiences that he designed this game and currently the only "historical" one in my collection. In it, one player runs the never ending supply of German prison guards while the rest (1-5) are escape officers of various nations who are trying to get their people out.

Normally this is a semi-coop where the escape officers are still trying to be the first to get two of their own pawns off the board but as my group is very much cooperative, it usually becomes everyone against the German player which is fantastic for us though it does up the difficulty for the guards somewhat. I know cause I've been both!

It's got a good looking map too.

Dice based movement and card drawing randomizes what your people can do per turn, and since everyone gets the same amount of rolls the odds of the guards catching -everyone- if they all escape at the same time is near impossible (unless you dice well and they don't). Indeed the only way for the Germans to win is for the time to run out. Closest I've gotten as the Germans is 9 turns remaining.

Also, for first timers the game is super daunting as they aren't sure what gear to go for or what route to attempt an escape. Hint: When unsure, always get rope. It is also a long game but the excitement certainly ramps up when the POWs start getting their escapes on.

Certainly a fun game once it gets going, and one I can recommend to those interested in this genre - as long as you have a friendly enough group to play it with (there are plenty of opportunities to be scum). I give it 3.5 lousy German cars out of 5.

Today I Smiled: Eurovision 2018

Another year means another Eurovision! As you all know I'm a bit of a fan of this event, and this year had a combination of nice eye candy,  a douchebag intruder for the UK's entry, a wiggly Australian, a pyromaniac piano vampire, some heavy metal screamers, an opera singer in a cool laser dress, and some peace loving vikings.

Sometimes I think there's a secret "who can burn the stage" contest too.

I quite liked those last two, as well as Greece's song and Albania's Rock entry. Even if you skip all the above, the next three you probably should watch: Moldova's superbly choreographed and humorous number, the actual winning entry from Israel which involves a bit of clucking and eye gymnastics, and my personal favourite this year: Germany's touching "You Let Me Walk Alone".

Last but not least, here's a clip of Deadpool (Ryan Reynolds) questioning why Canada isn't a part of Eurovision. :)

May 2018 Status

Another month down and this top list just keeps getting longer as I add more ideas and sundry items that I really should get around to... Also I've still mainly been focused on killing my backlog. Priorities right? :P

    End the year with less weight (-1 kg from last month, running total: -1.2 kg)
    Complete NWO: Lost City of Omu (0/2, 1-2 weeks to go)
    +Learn 3 more songs (0/3)
    Draw 12 drawings of anything (0/12)
    +Make a parody comic (planning)
    Make board game 19 prototype (procrastinating)
    Complete web comic chapter 1 (procrastinating)
    Make a simple computer game (procrastinating)
    +Clean out computer games
    +Clean out wardrobe

Backlog Update:

FROM GIFTS
Sims 3
Loki (Abandoned. Mindnumbing.)
Overlord 2
Commandos 2: Men of Courage (Abandoned. Not user friendly at all)
C&C Red Alert (DONE)
C&C Red Alert: Counterstrike (DONE)
C&C Red Alert: The Aftermath (DONE)
C&C Tiberian Sun (DONE)
C&C Tiberian Sun: Firestorm (More of the same)
C&C Red Alert 2 (DONE)
C&C Red Alert 2: Yuri's Revenge (DONE)
C&C Generals (DONE)
C&C Generals: Zero-Hour (DONE)
Supreme Commander (Abandoned. Too slow)
Dawn of War II (DONE)
Universe at War (Done / Had Enough)
Sins of a Solar Empire (DONE)
Diablo: Reaper of Souls (Doesn't Work)
Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty (Infinite Patching)
+Eador: Masters of the Broken World

GOG FREEBIE PILEUP
OxenFree (DONE)
Grim Fandango Remastered (DONE)
Worlds of Ultima: The Savage Empire (No. Prefer to retry Free UO)

COMPY CAN'T RUN (but I want to play)
Batman: Arkham Knight
Dying Light
Alien Isolation
Shadow of Mordor
Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice
+Satellite Reign

I thought I'd just put in some mini reviews with each of those "abandoned" items, most of which I did try my best to play but ultimately just found it not to my liking. The only exception, and the one I'll start with is The Savage Empire.

Ultima in Africa is a bit strange, but I was willing to try it until I heard that Official UO has become free to play. If I'm going to play any Ultima, it's definitely going to be UO and there's no way The Savage Empire was going to stand up to that.

The ARPG diablo clone Loki is up next, and while the game is functional (though very texty) it just dove head first into the realm of mind numbingly boring. Regardless of what on the rails quest you were on, it boiled down to enter new area, kill the hundreds of things in the area (and that's already sneaking past half the map). Rinse and repeat. Just... no.

Eidos' Commandos 2 should have been perfect for me. A bunch of specialists sneaking around in Nazi Germany should be great right? Yes and no. In theory it's good, but lousy voice acting paired with the most unfriendly user interface I've ever come across sent me packing quickly.

Supreme Commander is another RTS game, this one taking place on maps so vast you often needed to zoom out to almost see the whole planet to manage your huge array of forces. With epic music, decent story (from what I played) and nice combat (if you zoomed back in to see it) you might wonder why I gave up on this one, and the answer is simple: build time.

It's a case of hoping your dots overwhelm the enemy dots.

Even compared to the slowest builds in Command and Conquer, this game moves at a glacial pace. Watching two glaciers crash into each other is grand, but waiting for to build your glacier (army) and then getting them to travel across the map was hours of boredom. Ultimately I decided that I simply have more rewarding things to do with my time. :P

Today I Smiled: Winter Olympics 2018

Taking a break from the Direbug Saga today to give a nod to the PyeongChang 2018 Winter Olympics which has proved to be very entertaining. :)

My personal faves were: Chloe Kim's amazing halfpipe run, Ester Ledecka's unexpected Super G win, the pairs free skate (Germany starts at 12:54) and Javier Fernandez's silly Gala performance.

Aljona was flying!

I'm not sure if those links will work for everyone, but just in case they don't I looked for more so people wouldn't be left out in the cold.

Since I'm very into figure skating, here is the Alina Zagitova in practice, a tribute to Canada's Scott Moir and Tessa Virtue (20 years of pairs ice dancing), and Evgenia Medvedeva as Sailor Moon (not performed in these Olympics, but still cooky. Volume warning)

Didn't get to see much curling which is a shame, but watching the final shots for the men's tournament was great. Just for kicks I've also been ranking the Google Doodles during the Olympics (because I'm an animator too sometimes) and here are the results:

Rank 6
Rank 5
Rank 4
Bronze Medal
Silver Medal
Gold Medal

Also interesting that there are a few things not allowed or simply missing from the games. Lastly, for those who need that "Olympic" itch scratched - have no fear, the Marbelympics are free to watch on Youtube! Enjoy! :)

Ban those Lockboxes

Germany might be leading the way.

[Part of the Design Folder] 

News that in game lock boxes may soon become illegal in Germany has definitely brightened my day, as I truly believe these gambling components detract from any game they exist in. Hopefully the law passes and gets spread world wide, even if it does mean some of my favorite F2P games are forced to shut down in the process.

Yes, gambling is bad (and its worse when its kids getting addicted to it) but more to the point, imagine how much more effort would be going into enhancing or expanding a game if developers weren't so reliant on the low hanging fruit of the lock box crutch?