(GR) Wildlands: Pardon

[Part of the Wasted Land story] 

Despite the recent set backs with my squad the cartel must really be hurting on other fronts with full on aerial assaults happening on their production lines as the cartel leader calls in to meet. After killing who knows how many people he has managed to negotiate his way to a Presidential Pardon and extraction to turn in other nearby cartels, but this doesn't sit well with the CIA handler assigned to this task force and she shoots him dead before fleeing the scene. Maybe there's some truth to Walker's intuition?

Nevertheless, we're sent to support an elite Splinter Cell operative Sam Fisher in catching her - at a Unidad base no less, where she's selling secrets to try make a deal to escape. She's already KIA by Fisher when we arrive, but he has to hack the database to purge the Unidad server of its intel (in the center of the base we just stealthed through, with a strict "drop no bodies" requirement) while we mount a defense at all costs (and kill everyone anyway - wtf) as the entire army is alerted and tries to get to us. 

Under barrel grenade launchers are great for helicopters and many Unidad soldiers go down for each Ghost Recon soldier that does the same. Eventually its just Sam and myself left as the wipe completes. We jump out a back window and run for the nearest car when an explosion erupts behind me, throwing me forward and into a wall. Everything goes black. [Seriously, I can't win this mission...]

(GR) Wildlands: Punisher

[Part of the Wasted Land story]  

The general is very forthcoming in his intel in regards to weapons Unidad has gotten their hands on, and so while other ghost teams are sent to steal their nuke chopper and disarm a dirty bomb, my squad is sent to a bunker black site hidden next to an abandoned train line to retrieve a captured engineer being used against his will to develop some new weapon.

Interestingly what we find within is a trail of dead bodies. Another operative: Walker "the Punisher", is already here and questioning the engineer we're meant to retrieve. The high tech drones the engineer was developing killed the rest of Walker's squad and he believes it was a government CIA spook that leaked intel that led to the hit. 

Didn't expect to run into this guy!

We manage to talk him out of executing the techie and giving us custody but sure enough the supposedly "under duress" engineer shows his true colors by calling for Unidad backup. Walker then shoots the engineer in the face and we fight our way out of there through a small army of soldiers to escape, splitting up with the disgruntled soldier who we learn later also survived but quit the military. Ultimately that's still a mission fail in my book. 

(GR) Wildlands: Private

[Part of the Wasted Land story] 

As the stew maker has cartel radio on 24/7 we go after its DJ next who isn't so hard to find - the downsides of broadcasting right? He spills the beans on a rockstar musician hired by the cartel to perform at a private and secret concert which is decently guarded in the mountains. Good thing this guy is a coward, as all it takes is a little gun fire to make him run to his car and flee out the only road to that place - away from the people defending him! 

We nab him after shooting his tires out and learn a little about who financed him. As expected the cartel financiers don't really trust each other so we lean on that, stealing one of their armored cash delivery trucks and delivering it instead to the garage of another cartel accountant. Soon enough this guy is getting death threats from his own organization and comes forward on his own to snitch on his superiors.

Assassin's Creed: Bolivia

Of interest is the cartel's contact in the Unidad military, an untouchable general based in one of the largest military installations in the country. His previous aide who he recently imprisoned is easier to reach though, and from him we learn about the general's private life including his weakness: his daughter. Getting her and then setting an ambush for her papa is a piece of cake.

(GR) Wildlands: Pozolero

[Part of the Wasted Land story]

I'm soon recruited and deployed with the Ghost Recon team in Bolivia who have been busy taking down the Santa Blanca cartel in the region [we were playing it coop until it started crashing on us], but the mission is a fail as our first capture target had already hung himself up in his own luxury house. 

With no intel about the people who have gone missing in the province to be found here, we team up with Rainbow 6 operatives Twitch and Caveira who are working another lead and use their breaching skills to defeat a group of barricaded suspects with some anti-cartel hostages at a factory. The freed hostages reveal that bunches of them had already been taken via "death trucks" away somewhere so while Rainbow 6 secures them our Ghost Recon four man team go intercept the truck and force the driver to tell us where he takes his passengers: a chemical plant out in the styx.

That's some scary face paint.

We quietly take out the guards while infiltrating and capture the man-child "El Pozolero" (the stew maker) who dissolves the corpses in acid. He claims he's never killed anyone himself and is just doing his job but that doesn't stop him from getting multiple life sentences (as per his real life counterpart).

The Division 2: Router Killer

Better known as Tom Clancy's The Division 2, this game had been in our Friday game nights for a few cycles having "replaced" Ghost Recon Wildlands as it is more RPG than the latter. In it you play agents of said Division trying to bring order back to a post-apocalyptic America - Washington DC specifically for starters with expansions to other cities.

There's lots of gear to collect, upgrade or sell and skills to learn that mostly relates to tech: drones, turrets, launchers, shields and the like. As it is an RPG you also get hilarious situations where a headshot from your level 7 sniper rifle isn't enough to kill a level 22 bad guy who randomly generated into existence because you wandered into a "higher level" area. For the most part it's ok though, until we discovered it is frying Jim's router.

That means not only is he losing connection from the game but also from the internet in general, for the entire household spanning a random duration which usually leans more towards hours of disconnect instead of minutes! It's pretty impressive that a game can do that, and based on google it's a pretty common problem experienced by people who play this! As such, we've uninstalled it now (no point in playing it if we can't play it together). Obviously with that turn of events I don't recommend this game.

While I'm on the topic of stuff that doesn't work, Surviving the Aftermath which was free from Epic a little bit back somehow has worse loading times than the Total War series. Given I could probably finish a light novel before the game even starts, I'm considering this one worthless too.

Dune Monster Hunter Without Remorse

Dune (2021 - "Part One")

When the Emperor dictates the rising House Atreidies be given stewardship of the Planet Arrakis, the only world that produces the universally important "spice", it actually spells their doom as the previous stewards - the cruel house Harkonnen return to take their juicy money making planet. This film features great visuals and a decent story, well the first half of one anyway, and is well worth a watch. For all the future tech its funny all combat is close quarters though.

Monster Hunter

When a squad of US Rangers accidentally travel through a portal to a world full of giant monsters it's up to their leader (Milla Jovovich) to find a way home. While the plot doesn't go much deeper than that, the film relies on mostly non stop action to retain your attention. So much so that they forgot to put an ending. Yep, you basically get to the credits in mid fight with no decent resolution. Only recommended for action fans who don't care about plot or acting.

Oversized swords make everyone happy!

Without Remorse

This Tom Clancy movie stars Michael B. Jordan (not the basketball player), a vengeance driven Navy Seal who needs to kill some Russians, only to find he is a pawn in someone else's game. The action segments are pretty good but the plot itself is predictable. Also this protagonist has some cool abilities like "summon pickup truck" and "be at the right place at the right time" which are both inexplicable and slightly too convenient. Not recommended. If you want a Tom Clancy show, try out the Jack Ryan series instead.

Jack Ryan, (Jack) Reacher and Blindspot

Special investigators always gets their terrorists!

Jack Ryan

In this action thriller Tom Clancy's most popular character (this time played by John Krasinki) starts out as a CIA desk jockey who gets roped into exciting field work against a variety of threats. Very cool characters and good stories, though some side plots seem to just go nowhere? Still recommended. As of this post there are two seasons, with more to come!

Reacher

While traveling through a small town Ex-MP Jack Reacher (played by the towering Alan Ritchson) is arrested for a crime he didn't commit, and ends up in the middle of a conspiracy which he is happy to help take down... violently. Great story backed up with brutal action gets the thumbs up from me! Hope the second season is as solid as the first!

Blindspot

That must have taken hours in the make up department!

When the FBI take an amnesiac woman (Jaimie Alexander) into custody, they end up forming a special task force to "solve" all the crime related tattoos on her body which is both convenient and ridiculous. The five season show has a middling plot which includes silly episodes that are dreams and comedy ones as well as hilarious reasoning to some solves with "I know this hacker's code anywhere," being my favorite. Protip: Copy paste exists. Anyway, if you do watch it, the characters end up being why you'll stick around. Not as recommended as the two above but it's alright.

Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit

You've probably already seen a movie with Jack Ryan but didn't realize it.

The film opens with a pretty quick background on protagonist, Jack Ryan (Chris Pine) who is clearly a clever and driven guy. As with most things Tom Clancy, he is soon recruited into a secret organization and embedded undercover where he can put his intellect to work. Soon enough (*cough* after a time skip *cough*) he uncovers a potential terrorist plot and happens to become the pointman in stopping said attack which also puts a strain on his relationship with his scary face girl friend (Kiera Knightley). I normally find Kiera to be really pretty, not sure what happened to her here...

There are a number of funny bits and a few action sequences in the film, though nothing over the top though and I'm actually surprised with the rather low body count. I guess it's because he's not really meant to be field-ready? Anywho, he's in luck since the bad guys here are rather stupid. Two of them actually let him win / escape. Around 35% of it is also in Russian, but that's ok since it's pretty entertaining. I give Shadow Recruit two and a half out of five hidden files, but am not really keen on watching it again.

He's a man of many faces.
More interestingly, this Jack Ryan (albeit a rebooted version) is meant to be the same Jack Ryan in The Hunt for Red October (Alec Baldwin), Patriot Games (Harrison Ford), Clear and Present Danger (Harrison Ford) and The Sum of All Fears (Ben Affleck) - so he clearly has a lot of ground he can (re)cover if they decide to make a series with him. He'll need to up his combat game to make it interesting though.