Evil Genius and Evil Genius 2: World Domination

For those who want to take over the world! Muahahahaha!

Thanks to DL (and Wro as it was his idea) I was gifted these awhile back and have spent a decent amount of time with each of them now because yes, I like to pretend I'm a genius. :P These games are basically base builders with the twist that you are a bad guy trying to hide from the forces of justice while you build up your criminal empire. Usually I dislike such games with micromanagement but thanks to an excellent soundtrack and very easy controls where your minions run themselves based on what is available to them, this was rather enjoyable!

I did lose in the original Evil Genius though, as the super agents (among whom are basically copies of John Rambo and James Bond) smashed my minions and defenses to pieces and I could never recover because I could never find out of to actually kill them. The other forces of justice either are rogues who want to steal your stolen loot, saboteurs who blow up stuff, soldiers who kill your guys, or investigators who basically just scout and report back which spawns one of the earlier types to come raid you if they found something worth stealing / destroying / or murdering. :P

I do prefer Evil Genius 2 not only because I won it, but the graphics got a much needed upgrade and the tutorial actually helps you deal with those investigators and teaches you how to manage the "heat" (high heat = high level attackers). It's also slightly easier to avoid the super agents until you get the relevant side quests to take care of them. While there is violence ranging from "brutal" interrogations that can involve chucking people into shark tanks and all the way up to scorching parts of the globe with your doomsday device, all the violence is very comical with not a drop of blood to be found. All up very fun and one I recommend, though if you're only going to play one of these, Evil Genius 2 is the obvious pick with its much needed updates.

Galavant

A musical, fairy tale epic!

It's fun times with this lot.

This two season fantasy musical comedy series made me feel good with every episode and starts of with the old classic quest - the hero Galavant (Joshua Sasse) needing to save his fair maiden (Mallory Jansen) from the evil king (Timothy Omundson). Twists happen immediately and the ridiculous story just gets better and better as it goes along as characters get plenty of development. Despite the low budget effects and being more like a stage production than a TV show, I really enjoyed this and can easily recommend it. A good gauge if it might be for you is to watch the intro song here and see if you want more.

Klask and MicroMacro: Crime City

Been awhile since I reviewed board games!

Klask

This competitive two player game is very simple. It has a raised wooden board and using the power of magnets each player controls a woefully thin pillar that they can move on their half of the board as a wooden blocker beneath prevents you going further. You both have a sunken "goal" to defend and three little white magnets along the center act as the "net". You can score in any of these four ways: if the little yellow ball falls into your opponents goal, if your opponent falls into their own goal, if your opponent falls (they lost magnetization), or if your opponent gets two of those white magnets in the middle stuck on them. First to six wins! Very straight forward and definitely generates a lot of laughs.  

MicroMacro: Crime City

Do you like Where's Wally? If so, this cooperative game is for you because in it is one gigantic line art map filled with tiny little details with loads of hilarious (and violent) things happening. A small magnifying glass is provided but it might be wise to bring out more if you are playing with others. The same characters appear in multiple locations so that you can deduce where they were going or where they came from and a deck of 16 cases is included for you to solve and each card asks you a question that you have to answer BY SPOTTING IT ON THE MAP. It's not enough to have an educated and probably correct guess, you need to find proof which makes questions like "what was their relationship?" (lots of infidelity in this city lol), "what was the motive?" and "where is his corpse?" things you need to find. Despite the cute art this obviously is not for kids, is a "one and done" game, and with three of us playing we finished 9 out of the 16 cases in one sitting.

August 2024: Countries clash... in the Olympics!

We're more than half way through the games now but prior to the start Israeli athletes had been threatened a repeat of Munich. Israel's response was to take out some of the leaders of their known enemies and just get on with it. Meanwhile in the USA someone had tried to off Trump who is running for President again, but it was current President Biden who pulled out from running for his second term, finally understanding that he might be too old.

That shooter wasn't Olympics worthy unlike this pair (Kim Yeji and Yusuf Dikec).

Not all is well in the Olympics though with complaints ranging from uncomfortable beds to the Seine river (used for some swimming events) being so dirty its causing athletes to fall sick. Russian troops in Ukraine know all about bad water as they have a shortage of it, resorting to drinking whatever they can find. To be fair they might be dying too quickly to care about it anyway, but are still gaining ground regardless. On the water itself it's still humorous that the Russian navy is getting sunk by a country without one.

Some of this is made possible by drones. These things can do everything it seems, from spying on Olympic soccer training to killing helicopters. The UK has recognized the threat at has made an anti-drone laser system (which probably doesn't work well in fog, snow or rain but neither would flying drones). The crafty Ukranians solution is just to shotgun them from an old Yak-52. On a random tangent, I checked if someone made a laser to kill mosquitos and the answer is yes, but it currently isn't practical. Damn.

Meanwhile more bad news for Ukraine as Hungary is upset Ukraine is blocking their oil (despite them blocking aid to Ukraine for over two years) and NATO has also deemed Ukraine too corrupt to join them. Perhaps Russia's joint venture with China to establish a moon base, possibly in Mare Tranquillitatis Pit if they can claim it first, might take some heat off? With the ISS being retired in a few years that would be a pretty big achievement.

Not sure how China plans to bank roll this given their current financial troubles, but maybe it involves assimilating the Tibetans? They've still got around 10 years to work it out anyway. Not sure the way Thailand is handling their finance would be the answer. They're simply handing out digital money to citizens!

Godzilla Minus One (movie) and Ultimate Beastmaster (series)

Wouldn't these be sworn enemies? Lol.

Godzilla Minus One

Set at the end of World War II, when the Japanese forces are at their weakest, is when Godzilla decides to strike for... Godzilla reasons. While this famous kaiju appears early and often in his full glory, he is the antagonist to our hero - a failed kamikaze pilot who is having a tough time with all the deaths and the inability to earn his own. The sets and action sequences are great, and the story is pretty good too but it does drag on in some parts and I really didn't like the worthless protagonist. Only recommended if you are a Godzilla fan, and even then - its probably better to up the playback speed to at least 1.25x.

Ultimate Beastmaster

This three season sports show features one huge obstacle course nicknamed "the Beast" which has a starting point that looks like a dragon's maw which athletes from all over the globe attempt to conquer. It also has the same issue as Spartan where its people doing the same thing over and over and the editors know it, summarily speeding up less successful runs and also editing the course and rules each season to make it more exciting. What wins it though are the hilarious personalities of the multiple hosts from each host nation and their interactions with each other. Of course this doesn't stop us from watching it at 2x speed. :P

Extra note: Having exceptional hosts that people actually enjoy watching can really strengthen a series much like any of the shows on this list here. The latest season of Masterchef Australia also falls into this with new judges Jean Christophe Novelli and his crazy french energy as well as Sofia Levin's playful naughtiness. I do miss the opening song though.

Vikings: Valhalla and The Fall of House Usher

TV shows with blood and killing!

Vikings: Valhalla

This three season show is a sequel to the Vikings TV show but set enough years forward that none of the original cast are around anymore and only get name dropped on occassion. Acting wise the new cast aren't any worse and the story still involves a number of decent fight scenes and court intrigue, though this time it also spans much greater distances. While the ending certainly feels like they "ran out of time" its still an entertaining enough watch - especially if you liked the original. That sword cuts both ways though, because if you didn't like the original series you're better off staying away as this is pretty much more of the same.

The Fall of House Usher

This modern single season horror series based on the work of Edgar Allan Poe follows the rise and, as per the title, catastrophic fall of the Usher family who are both criminally wealthy and very much on borrowed time. Nice cinematography and there's a good amount of blood and gore, but the early part of the story relies more on disturbing jump scares for its injection of horror which (apart from one excellent one) isn't really useful, because the audience is told from the get go who is dead, how they died and that there's a character "seeing things". The nature of the antagonist is what kept me watching though, and the writers really dangle that hook out there with each passing episode. If you like horror then you might enjoy this one, but you need to stick with it as it gets stronger the more episodes in you get.

Dragonheir: Sailing Away

[Part of the Cursed story line.] 

Getting to season two for this game is a unique process where people who have "finished" all the content of season one at the allotted time are whisked away into a new server and are rewarded currencies based on how well the did in their previous season (and there are apparently four seasons of this now). 

While you keep all your RNGesus picked companions, all of them and your main character are back to level one with no gear so that you can grind up once more not only by doing the new stuff which involves saving an island of elves from some frisky sahaugin merlings but also by returning to the mainland to grind previously cleared combat zones which now feature different (and much harder) challenges. The elemental pairs also rotate to keep you on your toes which means my main party changed to be Fire Main / Horrus / Journ / Ripekas / and Estella for some heals.

The actual season one end boss is an illithid dragon?

The restarting thing is a bit annoying but could have been ok if the leveling back up was done better or differently (which I believe is something they mentioned in their road map). Not that it matters though as the game just issued a "Termination of Service for the US Region" for sometime in September, furthering angering the players who have paid real money on the game (already angry since the pay to win stuff they bought doesn't carry over to this season). This supposedly ties into USA's ban of Tiktok, as the company that owns Tiktok just bought Dragonheir and have a dispute with some US laws. I guess its best to bury this one now