Geek Girls Rule! #88 – Rhythm Heaven

Wow, in a stunning display of coincidence, I managed to buy a brand new DS game just before becoming amazingly ill and housebound.  The Husband What Rules and I were at Best Buy looking for a Who album, and I decided I needed a new game.  I’d seen the Rhythm Heaven commercials with Beyonce (forgive me for the lack of accent, I haven’t figured that out yet), and also read some reviews on a couple of sites, and decided to give it a shot.

This game is far more fun, addictive and challenging than it has any right to be.

Yeah, since picking it up on Monday, I’ve beat all four of the first level games, and the first remix.  I’d probably have beaten more, but I’m on codeine for the coughing, and codeine makes me amazingly stupid, not to mention uncoordinated.

The controls are simple, you only need three basic actions to play (tap, flick and lift).  The games start out simple enough, becoming increasingly complex as you play.  Right now I’m kind of hung up on the Ping Pong game.  I’ve completed everything up to Remix 1 on the “Superb” level.  Getting a “Superb” rating means you get a medal for that level, and medals unlock other minigames for you.

I’m finding it pretty engrossing so far.  The Robot fueling game was the most maddening.  Although Ping Pong is getting there for me right now.  Granted, not having to pause repeatedly to cough my lungs out would probably help.

Honestly, if you’re looking for a good, engrossing timewaster that will keep you occupied for hours, you’ll like this game.  The beats change up to add to the difficulty.  The animations are cute as all get out.  I highly recommend it as a good commute game.  Hopefully, tomorrow I’ll get to play it on the bus and see if it’s possible to keep the beat in a moving vehicle.  I don’t know that anyone under, say, 8 years of age is going to have the coordination to play it successfully, but I’ve been wrong before.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go beat Ping Pong.

Review: X-Men Origins: Wolverine

While not without its flaws, this film is an entertaining action-oriented prequel to the X-Men films, featuring the most popular X-Man, Wolverine.

Beginning in 1845 and ending in 1979, the film explores the backstory of mutant superhero Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) and his relationship with his older half-brother Victor aka the future supervillain Sabretooth (Liev Schreiber), and their involvement in the Team X black ops squad created by Colonel William Stryker (Danny Huston).

Director Gavin Hood (Tsotsi, Rendition) gets as much as he can out of the script with several well-conceived big action set pieces and capable performances from the main cast. There were reportedly major disputes between Hood and studio executives about the tone and direction of the film, and executive producer Richard Donner (director of Superman: The Movie) spent time on the set to smooth over the tensions. The creative differences may explain the uneven tone of the finished film, but Hood still proves capable of delivering exciting action scenes that fans will enjoy.

The screenplay by David Benioff (Troy, The Kite Runner) and Skip Woods (Swordfish, Hitman), while faithful in broad strokes to the character’s comic origin, suffers from rushing from one action scene to another while leaving characters and sub-plots undeveloped. Benioff’s original draft had some good buzz attached to it and was reportedly more character driven, so the contributions of Woods and three other uncredited writers may represent what the studio wanted more than what the director wanted. It’s satisfactory as far as summer action flicks go, but there was room to do much more. Still, it’s not the disaster that X-Men: The Last Stand was.

The productions values are high, with contributions by cinematographer Donald M. McAlpine (Moulin Rouge!, The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe), production designer Barry Robison (Rendition, Nim’s Island), costume designer Louise Mingenbach (X-Men, X2: X-Men United), and composer Harry Gregson-Williams (Shrek, The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe) leading the way. The CG visual effects are good and effectively add to the action scenes.

What really makes the film work are the performances of Jackman and Schreiber, both individually and together, providing some depth lacking in the script. Jackman’s portrayal of Wolverine through four films has been iconic, and this has been true even when the scripts were lacking, and he carries this film with grit and determination. Schreiber delivers the goods as Victor, so alike his brother in some ways but also so very different. Where Wolverine struggles to control his dark side, Victor embraces his. I would have liked more screen time devoted to the dualism of these two characters and their relationship.

The rest of the cast is adequate to the task at hand, including Huston as Stryker (an older version of the character was played by Brian Cox in X2), Black Eyed Peas’ singer will.i.am as John Wraith, Lynn Collins as Kayla Silverfox, Kevin Durand as the Blob, Dominic Monaghan as Bolt, Taylor Kitsch as Gambit (although his Cajun accent is weak), Daniel Henney as Agent Zero, Ryan Reynolds as Deadpool, Scott Adkins as Weapon XI, Tim Pocock as a teenaged Scott Summers (the future superhero Cyclops), Max Cullen and Julia Blake as an elderly couple who help Wolverine, Troye Sivan and Michael-James Olsen as young Wolverine and young Victor, and Tahyna Tozzi as Kayla’s sister Emma (possibly Emma Frost). There’s also a fun cameo that I don’t want to spoil for anyone, but fans should love it.

X-Men Origins: Wolverine sacrifices character development and plot coherence for action, but despite its flaws it manages to be an entertaining start to the summer film season. If you like Wolverine and you like action, this film should satisfy you.

[3.5 out of 5 stars]

Geek Girls Rule! #78 – Review: Living Labyrinth

Disclaimer:  I am very good friends with Julie Haehn, the creator of Living Labyrinth, however, I am also a good enough friend that if it sucked, I’d say it sucked.

THAT out of the way, Living Labyrinth does not suck.  Not in the least.  Julz gave the Geek Husband What Rules a copy for his birthday (signed even).   I actually held off on playing this just in case I didn’t like it, I didn’t want to have to tell her that.   We broke it out this past Sunday at a friend’s house, and had a blast playing it.

The game is for two to four players.  The labyrinth is laid out at random in a five by five square.  You start at one side of the labyrinth, your goal is at the opposite side.  You are dealt four cards, and using the actions on those cards, which enable you to flip tiles, turn tiles and move tiles, you begin to work your way across the labyrinth.  The game definitely has a high “screw your neighbor” factor, in that you can both make your way easier and obstruct the other players by accident and on purpose.  My one complaint is that the directions are not as clear as I would like, however, I also have no suggestions for making them more clear, so take that with a grain of salt.  Plus they have some rules clarifications on the website.

We played the game through twice in less than an hour.  There was much shouting and several “Ah HA!” moments, as well as a lot of name-calling and threats as paths across the labyrinth were closed off both incidentally and on purpose.  I discovered quickly that in my circle of friends the key to winning is to keep quiet and let them screw with each other repeatedly, until suddenly they notice, “Hey, not only has Mickey not been joining in the name-calling, she’s ALMOST WINNING!! STOP HER!!”  By the time they noticed, I was already to a point where I could counter pretty much anything they threw at me, and it only took me an extra turn to win.

Living Labyrinth definitely has high party game potential.  It’s a lot of fun.  Easy to learn, particularly with the rules clarification on the site.  The concept is easy enough to grasp that both young children and drunken adults* can learn and play it in short order.   I highly recommend this game for just about anyone, particularly if you’re really into simple strategy games.   The only downside is that only four people can play at a time… Well, eight if you play in teams.

*You’ll note that since I do not have children, my qualifications for good games involve, “Can I learn this drunk?”  Fluxx  kind of fails at this, since my drunken friends have a hard time with the concept of “the rules change?  all the time?”

Geek Girls Rule! #38.5 – Comic Review: Alex Robinson’s Lower Regions

 

ISBN:  978-1-60309-009-4
6″x4.5″ graphic novel
56 pages
For mature Readers
Top Shelf Productions – November 2007

I was going to wait until Friday to review this, but after reading it I got all excited and decided I couldn’t wait.  I really, really enjoyed the hell out of this little comic.  It’s black and white with no dialogue, so the entire story is conveyed solely by the art and the facial expressions of the characters.  It focuses on a female barbarian and her Halfling (I’m guessing) companion, battling their way through a dungeon.

I thought the art was great!  I could see touches of both Sergio Aragones and Roberta Gregory (Bitchy Bitch) in the style, yet it remained highly original.  The main character has a nice rack, but she’s proportional, and even with the simplicity of the black and white art, muscular development was indicated.  She looked like she could wield her axe reasonably, and she has a cute round face instead of the heart-shaped or “kitten-ish” faces we’re used to from comics artists. Her armor was a touch too Xena for me, at first, but the leather strip skirt is a historical and valid armor type, so I got the hell over it.  Also, at no time did this comic make me roll my eyes (which is good because that hurts right now, please see previous post).  Not once did anything the character did make want to punch anyone.   And honestly, that has to be some sort of record.

The facial expressions of the heroine and the other characters, however, are where the artist’s skill really shines.  I absolutely adore how well the artist conveyed a wide variety of emotions with the faces of the characters.  Fear, dismay, anger, shock, happiness, concern, all were conveyed well, which is important with the lack of dialogue.  I think my favorite is the yucky face she makes while combatting a zombie ogre-type thing.

The plot moves along really well, there are no wasted panels.  Every panel conveys something important to the story.  I won’t go too heavily into the plot, except to say it’s a dungeon crawl resulting in a rescue.  I wouldn’t want to ruin the ending for you.   According to the promo materials I got with my copy, the author/artist has worked up D&D stats for all the characters, and this does not surprise me in the least.  It has an excellent RPG feel to it, without feeling like it’s that guy everyone knows who will corner you and go on and on about his 24th Level Warrior-Mage with the +12 Soul-Sucking Sword…

On a Feminist Critique level, the character is empowered, she is determined, not once does her facial expression devolve into “Porn Face” (I’m looking at you, Greg Land),  nor does she look solely decorative.  She is active, and the agent of change.  She is the rescuer, the hero.   I’m sure there are people out there who would disagree with my assessment that the book is Feminist-friendly, if not Feminist itself, but that’s the great thing about opinions, everyone gets to have them.

I highly recommend this comic.  It’s cute.  It’s well done.  The art is great, particularly the wide range of facial expressions given the simplicity of the style.  It says that it is recommended for mature readers +16, but I don’t think I’d hesitate over-much giving this to an 11 year old.  Really.  And while I don’t have kids, I’m generally more conservative than my parent-friends about what I think children should have access to when.  So, go buy it!!!

Geek Girls Rule! #32.5 – The Transformers Movie

I just saw this last night. 

Yes, I know.  Bad Geek, no biscuit.  But the Mister and I don’t make it out to movies very often.  It used to be because we both worked in a nightclub.  But since he got the dayjob, it’s because our bedtime is no later than ten, as we get up at five every morning.  Except for weekends, when most theaters are zoos, movies aren’t a very do-able leisure activity for us.

So, the Roomie Netflixed The Transformers movie.  Now, I wasn’t hugely excited about the movie when I heard about it because I’m just a touch older than most hardcore Transformers fans.  But it sounded fun.  Last night the Roomie gave us the the choice of a Spalding Grey film or Transformers, and since I was spending my time baking birthday cookies for the Mister (Happy Birthday, Darling), I opted for something I figured didn’t need huge amounts of my concentration to follow.

And it didn’t require a great deal of effort to follow along.  Dorky boy gets less than bitchin’ car.  Lusts after girl.  Car is a jerk in the name of helping.  Save the world, blah, blah blah….Ok, all of that said, I laughed my ass off when the car was chasing him on his mom’s bike “Satan’s Camaro is in my front yard.” 

And I almost cried with joy the first time I saw Optimus Prime Transform.  Seriously, I stopped what I was doing and came out of the kitchen to watch it, and my throat got a little thick.  The CGI in that film was amazing.  And I wholeheartedly agree with several of my friends who saw it, “Less talking, more giant robot porn.”  The fight scenes were made of joy and unicorn sprinkles.  OH.  MY.  GOD.  I so truly regret not seeing this on the big screen now. 

Granted the whole, “Nerdy guy gets the hot girl” thing annoyed me a touch just because there’s rarely a “Nerdy girl” analog to that, but I was glad that she turned out to be useful.  Using the saws-all on (edited to fix name) Soundwave was fucking awesome, that and knowing how to hotwire a car.  She definitely got points for that.  And, the Mister would like to nominate the animated pop-machine for coolest throwaway “character” in a movie ever.  And, yeah, I started to cry when they took Bumblebee away from Sam, and again when he got him back, and again when his legs got ripped off.  I’m a girl, what are you gonna do?

I’m pretty sure I’m going to be picking this up in the near future so I can get my Giant Robot Porn fix whenever I feel like it. 

Geek Girls Rule! #26 – Unhallowed Metropolis Part II

Okay, it looks like the review is going to turn into a three-parter, mostly because it is absolutely impossible to create characters for seven people, using only two books, with a wholly unknown gaming system in anything even approximating a reasonable amount of time. 

Last Thursday Loree from the Girl Game came over and we sat down to make her character for Unhallowed Metropolis. It took us about an hour and a half, mostly because I had to keep looking stuff up. The point system for Attributes, Skills and Qualities is pretty straight forward. In feel, it is quite similar to GURPS, where you have Impediments you can take in order to give you more points for Qualities. These read much like Advantages and Disadvantages. The main difference from GURPS being that you may not use the points from Impediments for anything other than Qualities. 

To begin with, everyone has one level in every Attribute. You get 25 points for raising your Attributes and they are spent like this: To raise an Attribute from 1 to 2 costs 2 points; to raise an Attribute from 2 to 3 costs 3 points. Basically, it costs the amount of the level you hope to attain to increase the level. Human Attributes top out at 5. Any points you have left over can be doubled and spent on Qualities.

Skills are bought from a pool of 25 points as well, and they are spent the same way. It costs the amount of the level you hope to attain to buy the Skill up. The pre-established character concepts have Skills that you get automatically at certain levels. And for some Skills, for each level you have it, you also get a Stunt in that Skill. It sounds rather more complicated than it really is. Basically for every level you have in, say, Pistol you get a nifty thing you can do with pistols. 

Human characters begin with a point of Corruption in one of the Paths.  

Then you spend points on Qualities and Impediments to round out your character, buy stuff with the money that comes with your character concept, and come up with backstory.

Friday, everyone showed up and after a flurry of gift-exchanging (we have a tendency to buy each other stuff just because it reminds us of the person in question) and food prep (roast chicken, cheese-stuffed dates wrapped in bacon, Dal (probably spelling it wrong), potato-leek soup, calamata olive and whole wheat breads, gingerbread cupckakes and a pumpkin trifle… oh, and fresh guacamole and chips) we got down to making characters for everyone else. On a side note, we welcomed the newest member of the group, Lisa. The kitties thank her for the hand-knitted kitty toys. 

There are six character type templates: Aristocrat, Criminal, Dhampir, Doctor, Mourner and Undertaker. In our group we have one Dhampir (half-vampire), two Mourners, one ex-Mourner/Aristocrat, one Doctor, one Undertaker, and one Criminal/Manservant. One of the girls was out sick, so we’ll add her later. Currently everyone except Jilli and I have their books on order. We got most of the characters, or at least the concepts, fleshed out pretty well. Or at least they know what they want to be and where in the book they need to look to figure it out. There’s going to be a bit of Skill and Trait-juggling at the beginning of the next session to round everyone out.   

The character generation isn’t difficult, but I think most of us were struck by a great big case of “Oooooo, shiny!” while trying to figure out what we were going to do. Or rather they were; I was just struck by shiny every time I happened upon something else really neat while looking for applicable rules. This gamebook is not for the easily-distractable.  

Another plus that is a minus to creating characters in a timely fashion is that the creators urge you to come up with your own skills and qualities to fit your characters. This can be a problem with some people. It can be a little too much freedom. Sometimes too many choices are as bad as not enough choices, although we did appreciate the freedom to come up with concepts like Jilli’s ex-Mourner/Aristocrat, or Kate’s Criminal/Manservant. And I think those two character concepts are brilliant, with a phenomenal amount of potential. 

This group is big on backstory for their characters. Seriously, if you ask any one of them why their character behaves, thinks, or dresses some way, they will have an answer for you right off the bat. And the setting for this game, coupled with the fact that most of us really dig on Victoriana in the first place, means I’m going to be seeing some in-fucking-credible backstories and character histories. Have I mentioned lately how lucky I am to have these girls? Seriously, Jilli showed up with no idea what she wanted to play at all and, within about half an hour, had come up with an ex-Mourner who had had to leave the order because the rest of her family had died off and she needed to remarry to continue the family line. 

So, that’s my basic review of the character gen process: it can be a little involved when dealing with the “ooh, shiny” syndrome, but it’s fairly straightforward, and not at all difficult for my rule-challenged ass to figure out with just the book to guide me. And you also get a look at what sort of spread we put on for gaming around my place. 

The next Girl Game is November 9th, so hopefully after that I’ll be able to tell you how it plays and how well the combat mechanics work. 

Also, next weekend is AmberCon NW in Portland, OR. Odds are good this column will be late as I intend to be drunk and/or gaming for five days. I can’t wait. I’m running two games and playing in four or five others.