Christmas treats and a preview...

So, Merry Christmas!
I have put a link to my YouTube channel in the weblink bar on the right. There you will find some unboxing posts for a couple of games I got for Christmas - Dreadfleet and Legend Of Drizzt (D&D boardgame). These are added to the Lord of the Rings LCG I put on there last week.
So, also up and coming for the end of this year and 2012 are -

• Warmachine's plastic Cygnar Battlegroup (plus painting posts).
• The Walking Dead up to volume 14.
• Hellboy volume 11 (and BPRD thrown in for good measure).
• A couple of MTG core sets for 2012.
• LA Noire, Portal 2, Skyrim for PS3.
• A Dance With Dragons by George RR Martin
• Robin Hobb's Farseer Trilogy.

If I ever have a chance to post about all of these - it'll be right here! Happy New Year too!

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Posted in: board games,books,CCG/TCG,graphic novels,Magic:The Gathering,PS3,stuff,Warmachine

Lord Of The Rings, Living Card Game - What's in it? What's it like?

Look over at the video bar on the right and you will see a link over to the Youtube video I made (Monkeyreado channel) about the contents of the box. There are three. I bought it for under £30, which I thought was pretty reasonable - compared to other similar games out there. What sets this apart (a little) is the fact it's able to be played solo. Not everyone in my house is really that bothered by this kind of stuff. So this is a real selling point for me.

So here's a mini-review to go with it...

Presentation quality is great - as I've come to expect from FFG. The art is quite traditional, but well executed. The card stock for all of the components is durable and sturdy. The box may be a little large given the number of items but I guess it can also store any expansion packs that you might accrue along the way.

Ease of getting in to game one. Excellent I'd say. Probably slightly easier than Warhammer:Invasion to start off with - especially since you can jettison a few rules until you are ready for them. Also, in order to win the game (against the game) you need to complete a set of quest cards. These come in a variety of difficulty levels so that you can choose how hard you want your gaming experience to be. It is a tough game, however you play it though, and probably more difficult to succeed at than Warhammer:Invasion.

Playability/fun? - This is a really engaging gaming experience. Even solo. The game ebbs and flows, the chances of winning are slim and it feels like a real achievement to progress through to the end. The rules are reasonably simple, though I did need to make use of the game guide at the back of the rule book to make sure I did everything in the right sequence. The odds are stacked aginst you -  and the outcomes from using each of four the different deck sorts can be variable. I easily beat an easy quest using the Tactics deck but struggled with the Spirit one. Each deck has it's own strategy so I'll have to work on these. The Tactics deck is basically an attack deck, so that's probably why it was easy to get to grips with early on. Because of the four decks and three quests you start with - there is a lot of replayability for the new player. Add in the multiplayer experience and then the expansion packs....

OVERALL - highly recommended. I played three or four games in the first few days and then a couple more in the first week. I 'won' three out of six. The frustration is (nearly) enjoyable. It is also incredibly tough to complete your quests once you start ramping up the complexity and difficulty levels though - so be warned. But you know what? What's the point of a game that you know that you're going to win at every time? A good 8.5/10.

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Posted in: LCG

'The Amazing Screw-on Head and Other Curious Objects' versus 'Century:1969'.

Good evening fight-fans! Tonight it's a straight-down-the-middle-one submission fist fight between these two heavy-weights of the comic book world. In the blue corner Moore and O'Neill's 'Century' series gets to 1969, having followed on from The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, via Century:1910 to London in the (very) swinging sixties. In the red corner, is Mike Mignola's collection of 'short stories' - more occult based mystery and mayhem from the pen of the creator of such acclaimed works as Hellboy and BPRD.

Thwack!



Kludd!!



Let's get ready to rumble!!!

Round 1 : The narratives.

OK so to begin with both are very occult laden. Both are a bit odd to say the least, although both have one foot in a kind of recognisable reality. Furthermore, I'd also say that to get the best out of both you do need a working knowledge of the authors' other works.

 Moore/O'Neill's story sees Mina, Allan and Lando investing an occultist of sorts, who appears to be trying to complete a ritual with a lead singer of a band in order that he can transfer into the lead singer's body. Meanwhile, Jackie C. a gangland 'troubleshooter' (Michael Cane anyone?) is on the search for the murder of a member of the same band, leading him in the same direction as our intrepid investigators. Throw in drugs/sex/supernatural beings and astral planes and you're half way there. There are strong links to a number of different cultural and textual references -but I don't feel it makes the plot too obscure. Though it does require patience.

Mignola too, does not shy away from a text replete with a variety of external references.You'll find Abraham Lincoln and a beanstalk stretching into the sky within these pages. The short story structure of the compilation helps keep the lateral thinking in check though. You can't befuddle the reader too much in only about 28 pages or less. Contained here are The Amazing Screwed-on Head (a kind of robot thwarting the Zombie Emperor), Abu Gung and the Beanstalk (a boy gets one over on the devil), The Magician and the Snake (A magician pays the ultimate price for his art), The Witch and Her Soul (the devil comes to claim his remuneration), The Prisoner of Mars (A professor's ghostly spirit saves the earth from invasion) and The Chapel Of Curious Objects (does what it says on the tin). Each one a kind of snapshot exploring small ideas - simply - with limited explanation. Take them for what they are.

Round 1 = Mignola on points.

I liked the madcap world of Moore's 1960s, but there is a subtlety to Mignola's story telling that's really engaging. (If rather tongue-in-cheek or even self-parodying in this volume). Sometimes Moore is a little like hard work and the short stories at the back of each volume are incredibly densely written and hard to 'penetrate' (he'd like that description though!).

Round 2 : The art I say, the art.

Both are fantastic. Both open up different perspectives on the comic genre. Both unique.

 O'Neill is allowed to let his imagination literally rum amok in the  psychedelic landscape of the 1960s and the drug imbibing that takes place. There is nakedness and sex fairly regularly and O'Neill has never shied away from that. His drawing is full on, to go hand-in-hand with the narrative.Colours are vivid, vibrant and enthusiastically realised. His art continues to remain refreshing after the banality of some of the Marvel/DC offerings you can often come across. I can still clearly remember Marshall Law and his earlier 2000AD masterpieces after all these years...

Mignola is similarly a comic art icon. His blocking of simple often dark colours, the unfussy lines of the drawings and the willingness to manipulate the sense of a frame and it's place on the page are all here - as we have come to expect.The vibrant colours are saved for the dramatic moments - blood reds, yellows and oranges add striking contrasts to the more supernatural or gruesome scenes. It's carefully constrained, sparingly detailed - yet wonderfully atmospheric and evocative.

Round 2  = Mignola (on this occasion)

I enjoyed both of these. If you like other work by this lot then you'll probably be getting these anyway. For me, the short stories of Mignola are slightly more successful. Sure, there's not quite the narrative drive of Moore's offering but the overall quality is still great - the hardback copy I have is a nice addition to the bookshelf too.

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Posted in: graphic novels

Are we nearly there yet? 'A Game of Thrones'... the story so far.

As it happens, I've just finished 'A Feast for Crows' - Book four of A Song of Ice and Fire by George R R Martin. The title itself is a tad obscure as I'm not sure it really illuminates the content, though it does hint at it.
Here we have a post-war Westeros. A place for bandits, murderers and rapists. A place of recriminations, changed allegiances and revenge. It is struggling to piece itself together - with an equally disfunctional Cersei as regent Queen, ruling with bitterness and manipulation. The characters find no solace, nor peace, in the aftermath of the devastation that was unleashed. Brienne searches vainly to complete her deluded knightly quest for a Stark child. Jaime, less a sword-arm and changed from the man he was, also seems to seek some kind of salvation - which largely eludes him. Samwell voyages forlornly home in a vague attempt to spread the word of the evil that awaits beyond The Wall in the North. Sisters Arya and Sansa Stark are 'lost' and invisible to the world, appearing to be beyond the clutches of the Lannisters.
Running alongside this are the stories of Dorne and the Iron Islands where ongoing violent struggles for power and rule follow in the vacuum that the war has left. Brother and sister are at each others throats as they too play 'the game of thrones'.
We don't get everyone though, Brandon Stark and Tyrion Lannister are conspicuously absent -  and so too is the narrative of the Dragon Princess Daenerys. This annoys a lot of readers (fans?) - but Martin himself says he couldn't get everything in a single text. This was his way of bringing a narrative coherence to some characters. The narrative for the others will, apparently, come later. I didn't mind this so much. There are plenty of other epic fantasy stories where a long hiatus follows drama. I think Martin does need to reinforce the idea of a place in despair, searching for a new sense of itself. I like the way that we see other parts of the Westeros universe. I do understand that readers find it ponderous and lacking in pace. It does require patience and there is the nagging sense that not much happens in a large amount of text. I forgave it though.  I found out more about Westeros. I think it's interesting that Jamie should see things differently. I think it's eminently sensible that Brienne's quest is a kind of Holy Grail journey without ending, but with plenty of tribulation. Nothing is neat and tidy. No one is exempt form human frailty. It's never easy in this world.
I also agree that the writing isn't as engaging as in other installments and that there are some awkward moments that tenuously hang together. It might be a 'bridging' novel - moving towards a dramatic conclusion in some later book, as some have argued. Nevertheless ,I didn't stop reading. I still wanted to know what was next - and Martin does continue with the violence to main characters - unabated. Roll on 'A Dance with Dragons'.

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Posted in: books