Old TV Reviews: Forever Hornblower

A continuation of my old TV show reviews.

Forever (Cancelled)

A show about an ageless immortal. Ioan Gruffudd stars as a morgue based medical examiner who is trying to study his ability while hiding it from everyone else. Decent premise, decent execution, but even I wasn't sure where they could go after its one and only season without turning into Highlander.

Wouldn't this be easier with a sword?

Hornblower (Mini Series - Cancelled)

Another show featuring Ioan Gruffudd as Royal Navy Officer Horatio Hornblower, and one made with fantastic care, writing, and cinematography. Hornblower is one of my favorite mini-series with each episode being almost movie length. If you haven't seen them yet, I highly encourage you to give them a try. As they are quite dated, they can be found on Youtube now.

I prefer a pistol.

Command & Conquer: Red Alert

Without Hitler there is Stalin.

This refined version of the original takes a step back from the Tiberium future and sees Russia fighting the Allies (who I played to victory - as before I only play 1 side). Just the ore trucks (which collect gems and ore for funding) are a good example - as they dump their load into the refinery in under 3 seconds as opposed to the harvesters that used a straw.

Keep walking Hitler, you aren't in this game.

It's also interesting that the Allies get the "light" units this time around while Russia gets the "heavies", an inversion of the GDI/Nod arsenal from the first game. Along with some indoor maps there are also new units, most of which are good or mandatory thanks to having water now on the map - the rest are very situational. The engineer rush tactic is also gone here as are the commandos who are replaced by the uber-hero unit: Tanya. It's worth mentioning that I've killed more dogs in this game than any other.

The quality of the video cut scenes has also improved, and the best part is they fixed my complaint from the first game where you need to hunt everything down. Here at some point, the AI just "surrenders" and sends everything your way. Not as good as an immediate "you win" but good enough.

I cherry picked through the expansions and found that Counterstrike, while having missions come in small 2-3 set bundles for story purposes was still just more of the same just with full tech trees unlocked on both sides (which only happens in the last mission of the regular campaign).

Aftermath was more fun for me (at least for Allies), as there are more zero-construction missions. It also adds more ridiculous units though - like a nuke truck. It's exactly what it sounds like. There's no launcher either, it's a suicide unit. Good times! All up, Red Alert is a big step forward from the original and I give it 3.5 Tesla coils out of 5.

Old TV Reviews: Constantine's Redemption

A continuation of my old TV show reviews.

The Blacklist: Redemption (Cancelled)

I quite like the Blacklist, even more so these days since a particular character is less irksome than previously. Unfortunately this spin off stuck too close to the original formula to be engaging which is a shame. Especially since what makes the original formula work is James Spader. Not much of a loss for me, and not one I'd recommend unless you are a completionist. Watch the original Blacklist though (which is still going), that one is good fun.

Doesn't match up to the original.

Constantine (Cancelled)

Matt Ryan makes a fantastic Constantine (no offense to Keanu's movie version) and is very watchable in his 13 episode series which follows a monster of the week format. Just as the main threat begins to appear the series got cancelled, possibly due to lack of marketing. Luckily the character and the actor have since been imported to Arrow for one episode and now has a recurring role in Legends of Tomorrow.

Resurrected from development hell!

Old TV Reviews: Conan the Wiedzmin

Thanks to my Strong Girl Bong-soon post, I've decided to do a short set of TV show reviews within the following rules: It must be finished and I must have watched (and mostly remember) all the episodes. As you might have guessed, I'm going to amuse myself by combining some titles too. :P

Conan the Adventurer (Ended)

Ralf Moeller's Conan is quite different to the Arnie version. Despite his attire, Conan is more knight than barbarian, is more verbose, enjoys traveling in a party, and is much less grim. Unfortunately the acting is bad, the plot is regularly laughable as is the comedy relief main villain, and there are some filler scenes that just didn't need to be there at all. One episode had at least 5 minutes of a man running. Yep. Not a chase scene or anything, just running. At least there is occasional eye candy! Not one I can recommend, nor one that needed a second season.

Mostly fighters in this party.

Wiedzmin (Polish - Ended)

This is the story of Geralt of Rivia, and takes many plot points from the popular "Witcher" books. Despite the low budget props, CGI and cinematography, as well as some questionable subtitling in the version I watched, this series was very entertaining and Michal Zebrowski is a decent Geralt. We quite liked Jaskier (Dandelion) too! Each episode was almost stand alone, with a focus on dialogue peppered with some decent action. I would have loved a Season 2 for this one. For now I just hold out hope that the planned Netflix version will be just as good, if not better.

Some Ciri would be great too.

Strong Girl Bong-soon

A surprisingly enjoyable show!

I'd never thought I'd blog about a TV show, much less a Korean Romantic Comedy but here we are. At it's heart, despite being about a girl who is desperately trying to hide her super strength from the world, this show is definitely a romance with many minutes spent on gazing. Yes you heard that right. She looks at him, he looks at her. Sometimes, it's even in slow motion. There are also many obvious sponsor shots and blurred out tags post production and some of the humor is very stupid.

Yet despite all of that, this 16 episode series got us hooked easily with the catchy music, great casting (Park Bo-young is  a very cute protagonist), good plot (though episode 10 drags a little) and high quality production. There's also a surprising amount of eating in each episode, each of which are over an hour long.

She doesn't need a super hero outfit.

Best of all, there's a decent villain who keeps things interesting which was a very good surprise given theme of the show. I give this 4 noodles out of 5 and can easily recommend it to anyone who likes rom-coms or simply want to try something different, as long as you keep the expectation that this is a drama rather than an action show.

Justice League

DC still has a hard time catching Marvel.

When a cookie cutter bad guy with no depth suddenly appears to collect dangerous artifacts it's up to Batman and Wonder Woman to assemble a small team of superheroes to save the day. The effects are great, the funny bits work well and bonus points for the music which incorporates bits of recognizable themes.

It's like Aquaman was an after thought. As usual.

Alas, there are more than a few plot holes here and while I get why this needs to be an ensemble team, some could have just been cameos rather than main parts. All up it's a decent enough action flick, but I feel it could have been better / done more with what they had and leaves an odd sensation that the entire movie was "filler", which it shouldn't be. For that I give it 3 parademons out of 5 and am not so keen on watching it again.

April 2018 Status

Oh boy, lots of reds on the list this time around.

    Complete web comic chapter 1 (procrastinating)
    Finish board game prototype Game 19 (procrastinating)
    End the year with less weight (+1.3 kg from last month, running total:  -0.2 kg)
    Finish the Direbug Saga (done)
    Clear 20 games from my back log (21/20)
    Draw 12 drawings of anything (0/12 procrastinating)
    Learn 5 more songs (6/5 done on the previous list, skipped Raimei)
    Complete NWO: Lost City of Omu (0/2)
    +Make a simple computer game? (good luck)

And the backlog Update:

FROM GIFTS
Sims 3
Loki
Overlord 2
Commandos: Men of Courage
C&C (DONE)
C&C: Covert Ops (More of same, skipped)
C&C Red Alert
C&C Red Alert: Counterstrike
C&C Red Alert: The Aftermath
C&C Tiberian Sun
C&C Tiberian Sun: Firestorm
C&C Red Alert 2
C&C Red Alert 2: Yuri's Revenge
C&C Generals
C&C Generals: Zero-Hour
Titan Quest (doesn't run)
GTA3 (doesn't run)
Supreme Commander
World in Conflict (constant crashing)
FEAR Perseus Mandate (DONE)
Warcraft: Orcs and Humans (doesn't run)
Warcraft 3: Frozen Throne  (requires WC3 to run)
Warcraft 3: Reign of Chaos (doesn't run)
Dawn of War II
Universe at War
Spore (DONE)
Sins of a Solar Empire
Diablo: Reaper of Souls
Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty
Black and White 2 (doesn't run, windows incompatibility)
+Act of War (doesn't run)
+Rise of Legends (bad CD)

GOG FREEBIE PILEUP
The King of Fighters 2002 (DONE)
OxenFree
Grim Fandango Remastered
Beneath a Steel Sky (DONE)
Tyrian 2000  (DONE)
Dragonsphere (DONE)
Ultima 4: Quest of the Avatar (NO: Bad controls/Graphics)
Treasure Adventure Game  (DONE)
Warsow (doesn't run)
Worlds of Ultima: The Savage Empire

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

This is what happens when I focus on back log clearing, and at the moment I'm still slowly chipping away at Red Alert and Supreme Commander, along with NWO: Omu of course. Some of the games cleared were also not "completed", and more towards "didn't work upon installation". The joys of old CDs eh? I also just said "No" to Ultima IV as I just can't get over the stick figure graphics. Looks like I'm getting picky!

Behold, the ultimate battle versus Lord British!