Jan 2008 Game Day
by Karrde on Jan.12, 2008, under Games
Our monthly game day was the 5th, and a full day of games it was. I haven’t really mentioned it here before though. Lisa and I belong to the Tidewater Strategy Group. As a group we get together one a month for a full day of board games, and the rest of the moth random people get together at peoples houses or the local game stores. There’s 30+ people in the group and between members and guests there’s usually 25-30 people at a game day. But on to the games…
Faling Behind
by Karrde on Jan.11, 2008, under Books, Games, Movies
Yes I’m still alive, just life gets away sometimes.
Been playing a lot of Guitar Hero. Finished Hinterland (4/5) and am on to the next Honor Harrington
I’ll try and expound on these over the next few days.
Review: I Am Legend
by Karrde on Dec.25, 2007, under Movies, Review
I Am Legend an adaptation of the novel
Not having much to do today, Lisa and I headed out to the movies. We had discussed seeing this when it was released but events and timing got in the way, so we held off till this vacation week. Despite some negative commentary from folks at Lisa’s work, we’re glad we went and saw this.
When we first saw the previews we didn’t know what to expect, they didn’t reveal much of the plot, just that Will Smith was the only survivor of some catastrophe. Then as more commercials and previews came out we thought it was a Zombie movie. A little digging into the history of the original novel said Vampire. Neither of these are quite true, but the disease in the movie is portrayed as a little of both. Despite the horror/suspense genre not being our normal cup of tea, both Lisa and I wanted to see this movie. For Lisa at least there was some drool factor in Will Smith, but the concept of such an actor doing essentially a “one man show” was a good draw as well.
This movie could have been an effects fest, and probably many people went in expecting it. In the end the movie is all about the story, the story about the “last man” on earth and how he has survived, and how such solitude takes it’s toll. Will Smith manages to pull off a remarkable portrayal of a man fighting to save the world while at the same time fighting to save himself.
When you go to see this remember to turn off that blockbuster mentality. This movie is not meant to be that despite it’s budget. Instead, go in ready to care about the characters of this movie, because it’s hard not to.
Overall 4/5.
Space Shuffle – We haven’t opened this yet?
by Karrde on Dec.23, 2007, under Games
An evening of games at Duane & Steve’s was started (after an abortive attempt at Pinochle) with the gem known as Space Shuffle.
We cracked open the box, opened the deck of cards and immediately started shuffling, after all it is the name of the game. Duane tells us to stop as we missed the player ”
Two solar systems immediately take shape, and play progresses smoothly. A mostly yellow solar system (no player) and a mostly green solar system (me of course) shape up nicely, and purple cards (Steve) are nowhere to be seen. Steve makes a comment to the effect of “I think I hate this game”, my response is “I know who else hates this game… the scorekeeper”. To which Duane responds “watch it or that’ll be you”.
The score keeping in this game truly is tedious, and a few times people got too into the grove of playing for Duane to keep up on the score keeping duties. The game proceeds ok for the most part, the first solar system closed is a solid blue one. We continue toward the end, and as we are playing out the last cards in our hand, I get to play 3 cars in a row to end the game. Still wasn’t enough to win the game. Scores are scattered between 170 and 120.
Overall a run of the mill card game, I won’t be suggesting it any time soon.
Review: Ashes of Victory
by Karrde on Dec.23, 2007, under Books, Review
Ashes of Victory
The Honorverse as it is called is a series of Science Fiction war stories, mostly space battles, but the political and individual stories that go behind them as well. The main character is Honor Harrington a commander in the Royal Manticoran Space Navy. The series mostly follows her progression though the war, and her rise through her birth nation and a local allied nations navies.
By Ashes of Victory, Honor is an Admiral in the RMN and due to some injuries sustained in the previous books is working as an instructor at the navies Officer School. This represented a great shift in the series. For the first time 90% of the action of the book does not involve the lead character. To that point over half of the book doesn’t even include her. Even further the list of “lead” characters is somewhat long.
I don’t usually have a problem with multi-lead books, but this time I did. I’m not sure if it was a sense of disconnect, for eight books we’ve had one lead character with the occasional aside for some other characters or other settings. Now we have the traditional multiple leads, and switch perspective between them every chapter or so. I think one of the problems, is that some of these characters just weren’t strong enough. Most of these new “leads” were the supporting role characters that we’ve seen and heard from every now and then, but their personalities weren’t strengthened into lead characters. Not enough to turn me off, but enough to reduce my enthusiasm for the book.
Overall I’d rate this as a 3/5. For the moment though I’m going to set aside the series, but I’ll be back soon.
