Xenonauts: Dreadnought

[Part of the Xenonauts story]

The time has come to use the plan to end the aliens for good and the old Commander leads Parker Sanctuary, Stray Cat Brandon, Dr. Tygan, Captain Logan, Straggler Rachel, Straggler Rashida, Carol Hattier, Timeflies Stomachio and Billy Bob O'Reagan with hover tank support onto the alien dreadnought to immediately waste the initial lizardmen guards and charge forward to the upper temple.

En route, Billy Bob is flanked and killed by terminators while martian men with big guns and good aim destroy the hovertank from far away - the explosion catching and killing the commander, painting his pieces along the metal walls. Dr. Tygan is sniped by a jetpack guy as he locates the High Praetor whom Rashida snipes. Brandon also falls to plasma fire while the team uploads the virus and clear out the remaining enemy shooters.

Alas, the escape pods aren't working - they have to back track to activate them but to their horror discover a swarm of (never ending) reapers pouring in after them. Establishing a firing line they put down dozens of the reapers before finally a round of bad shooting and reloading lets one get the drop on Logan. They are overrun, impregnated into zombie bitches and then are autowarped by the virus to who knows where. The entire squad is lost but no one cares because it is VICTORY FOR THE PLANET! YEAAHHHHHHH! Once again the Earth is saved.

The Xenonauts last stand.

Decluttering Day 25: Xenonaut rough journal, since this story is done! :)

State of Decay 2: Team Sanctuary

[Part of the Diary of Zombies]

At some undisclosed location, Red-Talon soldiers desperately try to hold their position against hordes of zombies while their tech works on the relay to the AI code named CLEO to provide support against the growing undead illness. It does not go well for them.

Shouldn't have used all those wall repair kits earlier on...

At Providence Ridge, an odd group of survivors makes their way to a nearby Firewatch tower to serve as their base. Military girl Val, Dr. Hurt, Downey and her brother Jamaar decide to stop here as Jamaar has been infected by the new blood plague which is being spread by infected zombies recently. At least they are easy to spot, having blood red skin and glowing red eyes instead of the glowing yellow eyes the "regular" zombies do.

Luckily Dr. Hurt knows how to produce a cure if he can get his hands on some plague samples from the infected zeds, so Downey goes to work and finds another group of survivors that want to destroy the nearby plague heart which causes this infection. Joined by handyman William, old Dorothy and female soldier Parker they locate and destroy the horrible looking construct with melee weapons even as it calls waves of zombies to defend it. Fortunately the infection rate here is very minimal (easy mode) and everyone survives.

The next day there is already unrest at the camp as to who should lead. Downey's idea of taking control by force is outvoted immediately while Val blows her chance at becoming "sheriff" when she tries assist another pair of survivors against some thieves. Harsh words and gunfire are exchanged, after which Val takes survivor Douglas back to camp. By default, Dr. Hurt becomes leader as his plan is simply to build a big, self reliant base. His first mandate though: destroy all the remaining plague hearts in the area, because the best defense is a good offense. Thus team Sanctuary is born!

Insight: In Daybreak horde mode, your tech needs to survive seven waves of baddies which was clearly intended for multiplayer. Solo wise best I've done is reach the half way point of round 5. You can buy a lot of time if you fight outside the barricade, especially in the earlier rounds. It pays to learn the dodge counter (C forward through an attacking zed then E its back) as that helps in the main game too.

It's been a long time since I played State of Decay, but its nice to see that my tips for that game still mostly work for this one too! Settings wise I'll be starting from the easiest of easy modes and working my way up slowly using custom difficulty sliders through this story.

Double Statham: Parker and Wild Card

Parker

How the movie does not end at the "van scene", I do not know.

Jason Statham is a professional heister, but after being teamed up with a crew that doesn't uphold their end of the bargain he hunts them down to teach them a lesson. Like, don't screw up killing a guy because he might be upset at that if he actually survives. Yep, that happens in this movie. Fortunately there are pretty nice and brutal action sequences in this flick but there's one glaring problem with it: JLo. Yep. While I don't mind her acting ability or screen presence it's just the way her character is written that makes it smell like they went "Hey, let's put in Jlo!". Why?

Because she's nice eye candy?

This also results in Statham putting on a ridiculous Texas accent for a part of the film (undercover purposes you know) and it is ... really bad? I'm being polite here. It's a pity since the first act (that has no Jlo) is pretty engaging, then it sort of drops to a lower gear when she appears. All up I give it two firing pins out of five, can only recommend it to Statham / JLo fans, and wouldn't want to watch it again.

~~~

Wild Card

Jason Statham is a "security specialist" in Las Vegas who has an aversion to firearms. Again, thanks to his skills there are some nice action sequences to be had here even if some fight segments are sped up, it still works. Also there are lots of decent actors that have more or less cameo roles in the flick and the use of country music works well given the setting.

But he looks so harmless...

While this does have a bit of action the movie is actually a character piece to which the action plays second fiddle, and it actually makes for a good change. Statham's character has a pretty basic goal all up, and it soon becomes clear that he's actually his own worst enemy. Probably helps that this is based off a book. I also have to commend the editing work here as they manage to really make the most of the run time and by that I mean off the top of my head I can't say they should have cut "x" which I normally do. It's a pretty clean and entertaining piece of work, and one I give two and a half cards out of five to.

Would I watch this one again? Yes!