“The World’s End” 08/23/2013 Little Ben Well, well, well what do we have here? Could this be my inaugural film post on the Dungeon Crawlers Blog? If you said yes, you would be correct you may now have a cookie. I thought long and hard about what I wanted my first post to be, the guys here at DCR have been so great to me that I knew I needed to really come up with a flick that would be epic, and loved by all. A movie that the entirety of geekdom could embrace, one that screamed “Look at me, I’m AWESOME!” Luckily for me, and by me I mean you, I was able to catch a showing of the The World’s End last night, and let me tell you what. It was great, it had everything that we’ve come to expect from a Wright/Pegg script with Wright’s direction. I’m going to try something different with this review and will be breaking it up into three distinct parts; the three that I feel best encompass the film. I’ll do my best to leave out all spoilers, not because I’m worried you might hate me but because I know my friends will hate me and I’ll never hear the end of it.
The three main points as seen by Ben: · Comedy · Action · Heart They might not make sense to you now, but this is my review and I can get away with pretty much anything I want here so “ha!” So when I say “comedy” what I am referring to are the laughs, and when we think about who is behind this movie we are expecting big ones. The “action” is pretty self-explanatory, Edgar Wright more than proved that he could film an action flick with Hot Fuzz and Scott Pilgrim vs The World and he didn’t slouch here either. Now when we get to “heart” I’m more talking about how the movie affected me, how I felt during and after. All decent films have one thing in common, they all made you feel something, whether it was good or bad that doesn’t matter. And the really good ones have you talking about it for hours afterwards. Being a millennium has its perks one of which is the Facebook Group Chat feature, I’ve been involved in a chat that is going on about 12000+ individual messages completely dedicated to this great art and this where I am able to discuss the truly great movies, well there and now here. The World’s End is funny; there is no other way to put it. You can tell the actors had a great time making it, and why wouldn’t they? The majority have been great friends for years popping up in each other’s projects time and time again. And I’m okay with that because it works, they have chemistry and that’s what counts. In the movie you’ll see that in bunches, Pegg’s “Gary King” character is great, and it’s even better to see him in a silly role again, one that he got to just have fun with. Frost had a chance to play against type instead of the lovable buffoon he got a chance to be the straight-laced everyman and it worked beautifully. I approve whole-heartedly. Action: Were you as impressed with the fights in Scott Pilgrim as I was? Then you’re gonna love this one, the fights were well choreographed, and fun to watch. Which is all you can really ask for in a movie like this. Nick Frost does shine in his role, and is worth a viewing just watch him kick some ass. Go see it now, actually you should probably stop reading here and go see it now. Just bookmark this page, hop in the car, head to over to your theater of choice (we all have one), walk in and politely ask the theater attendant which theater you’re in, and then promptly sprint to your seat. All settled? Good, we’ll talk soon. Waiting… Waiting… Waiting… Waiting… Waiting… Waiting… Waiting… Waiting… Waiting… Waiting… There now don’t you feel better? You’ve seen the movie, you understand the hype and you’re excited to finish this article. From here we’re going to talk about “heart.” You saw it; you know what I’m talking about. At its center the movie is about friendship and growing old, Ideas that we can all relate to ones that a lot of us are still worried about. I don’t want to get too much into this section because I would rather you see it for yourself.
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While at GenCon we were introduced to the game Square Shooters. Square Shooters are 9 nine dice that are printed with a full deck of 52 cards plus 2 jokers. Their patent-pending design places the playing card faces on the dice in such a way that popular card hands from poker to rummy can be rolled. For instance, every straight and royal flush card for every suit is on a different die; and every rank card is on a different die! You literally can use them to play almost any playing card game! The dice are specially designed so you can roll hands for rummy, poker, 21, etc. It’s great when playing with little ones who understand the games but can’t hold 7 cards in their hands. I love that the directions not only come for playing a Square Shooters game, but they list directions for a ton of other games. It is a self contained game, and that can easily throw it into a purse, backpack, or bag and be taken everywhere! Square Shooters can be literally hours of fun for you and your family, because there are just soooo many games you can use this to play with. I highly recommend this for everybody! Not only that the wonderful people that created Square Shooters is hosting a Q4 2013 contest which invites creative gamers to submit game designs to their Square Shooters Game Design Forum (Forum.SquareShooters.com). Submissions will be judged and a grand prize awarded for the best overall game design, along with prizes for “best in category.” For registration go to www.thats-how-i-roll.com So check out this game out and if you are a game design maybe you should try your luck! Crime, political scandal and murder are running rampant in Baldur’s Gate, a city on the verge of war, in the newest D&D Encounters season beginning today! Murder in Baldur's Gate takes place during The Sundering, a world-shattering event that, for the first time, invites fans to help define the future of the most popular setting in the Dungeons & Dragons universe – the Forgotten Realms. In this first D&D Encounters season of The Sundering, danger lurks in the city of Baldur’s Gate and the plot of a murdered deity finally comes to fruition, resurrecting the god of assassins. Bhaal will live again. And in the city that once thwarted his rebirth, can the heroes keep Baldur’s Gate from tearing itself apart? And how will these events affect the Forgotten Realms? Throughout the Murder’s in Baldur’s Gate season, which begins today and extends through November 13, players will be encouraged to use the Sundering Adventurer’s Chronicle, an online tool that will collect and tally their play experiences to ultimately help affect the fate of the Forgotten Realms. In the end, the results from all of the D&D Encounters season of The Sundering will help to provide a landscape for future D&D offerings. Adventurers can also now play the latest D&D Encounters adventure from anywhere in the world – at the same time as the in-store program! Murder in Baldur's Gate includes a harrowing 32-page adventure in which the player characters defend Baldur's Gate against an ancient evil long thought slain, along with 64-pages containing in-depth information on the city and its inhabitants. It is currently available for a suggested retail price of $34.95. For more information on all of the products and in-store play programs related to The Sundering, visit www.DungeonsandDragons.com/Sundering. Following Wizards of the Coast’s recent news at Gen Con of the yearlong Dungeons & Dragons event “The Sundering” in the Forgotten Realm’s setting, DeNA has released the debut trailer for its future mobile game release of Dungeons & Dragons: Arena of War.
Arena of War Trailer View and embed the Arena of War trailer from this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6AdNhczUDKI Pre-register for Exclusive Bonus Content Fans can pre-register for the game and upgrade their character with a free Ultra Rare Power CAUSE FEAR. To earn the exclusive pre-registration bonus offer, and to be alerted via email as soon as the game is available for free download, please visit: http://www.dndarenaofwar.com About Arena of War Arena of War, the first ever free-to-play Dungeons & Dragons game for mobile, is a 3D battle-RPG developed by DeNA in partnership with Wizards of the Coast. Set in the Forgotten Realms, Arena of War features iconic D&D locations such as Baldur’s Gate and monsters such as the Beholder. The live events in the yearlong Sundering event will evolve in the game giving an ever-changing experience to players. Arena of War will be available soon for free on iPhone, iPad, iPod touch and Android. Are you ready for TWO new ways to play Lords of Waterdeep, the award-winning game from Wizards of the Coast? This last Thursday at Gen Con Indy, Wizards of the Coast announced an all-new way to play Lords of Waterdeep – on iPad! With the upcoming digital version developed by Playdek, players will be able to dive into Lords of Waterdeep anytime, anywhere! This high-quality faithful adaptation of the popular board game is designed for 2-4 players and supports online play asynchronously or in real time, and offline play against others and/or included computer opponents. In addition, the highly-anticipated Scoundrels of Skullport expansion for the Lords of Waterdeep board game is available beginning today! Scoundrels of Skullport adds not one, but two, complete expansions filled with brand new content for the best-selling Lords of Waterdeep board game, including the sprawling dungeon of Undermountain and the criminal haven of Skullport. Each thrilling location has unique characteristics and offers new play options, including new Lords, Buildings, Intrigue and Quest cards. Scoundrels of Skullport adds brand new content for the award-winning, bestselling board game, Lords of Waterdeep. It’s not one, but two, complete expansions; the sprawling dungeon of Undermountain and the criminal haven of Skullport. Each thrilling location has unique characteristics and offers new play options, including new Lords, Buildings, Intrigue and Quest cards. Owners of Lords of Waterdeep can use one or both of these new subterranean locations to add depth to their game experience. There’s also a new faction, the Gray Hands, so now a sixth player can join in the fun! · The Skullport Module The Skullport module includes a new resource: Corruption. Unlike Adventurers and Gold, having Corruption in your tavern penalizes you at the end of the game. Each Corruption token in your Tavern at the end of the game is worth negative Victory Points. The exact negative value depends on how much Corruption has been collected throughout the game; the more corrupt you and your fellow Lords are, the more Corruption hurts your score · The Undermountain Module The rumored wealth of Undermountain entices adventurers to brave the mysteries and monsters beneath the City of Splendors. The risks and the rewards are greater for undertaking Quests that require more Gold and Adventurers. I have become a big fan of the science fiction TV series Doctor Who over the last few years, and while there have been plenty of Doctor Who board games published over the years, lets face it most of them have been pretty terrible. When I sat down at the table at GenCon to demo this game I had high hopes of Doctor Who: The Card Game. The game was designed by Martin Wallace. As the name suggests, Doctor Who: The Card Game is based around a deck of cards. There are also some players tokens used to represent the TARDIS, Daleks, and Time Points. The game takes three or four players, and suggests one hour as the approximate play time. On his or her turn, each player plays cards until he has three left, then passes those to his right-hand neighbor. You'll usually have five cards in your hand: two you've picked up from the draw deck, and three you've been passed by your left hand opponent. There are four main types of cards: locations, enemies, defenders, and support. Locations are played to your tableau and are worth VPs– you get the VPs at the end of the game unless the location is under attack at game end, in which case the attacking player gets the points. Enemy cards are the ones used to launch attacks on other players' locations, and include monsters and aliens from the TV series such as Daleks, Cybermen, and the Master. Defender cards are used to defend your own locations, and represent the Doctor and some of his companions. When enemy and defender cards are both played, their strengths are added up to determine the winner, with defender winning ties. Finally, support cards bring in some of the equipment and allies from the TV series, and can be played for a variety of effects to shake things up a bit. In most turns, you will have just two cards to play, but it's possible to use a reserve (usually limited to two cards) and to buy extra cards. I won't go into all the rules here as they can be downloaded, but the above basic outline should give you the general idea. So what do I think of it? I like rules to be comprehensive and clear. These rules are well-written for the most part, but there are some pretty significant holes. The resolution of conflicts is incompletely described in the rule book and that's pretty important. Some things that seem to happen fairly frequently are not addressed in the rules (e.g. what do you do if you need more TARDIS or Dalek counters than the five provided? can immediate game end be triggered during the usual "end game" phase?) – I hope an FAQ will sort some of this out. But once you've figured out what the rules are intended to be, or house ruled the omissions, the game seems pretty solid. For me, the theme is pretty important in this game. After all, I bought it partly because it's Doctor Who rather than because the mechanisms sounded interesting. The theme is well established by the artwork on the cards. In the TV series, the Doctor and his companions do defend various locations in time and space against a variety of monsters and alien invaders, so the game premise works. The enemy invaders tend to stick to their own kind, and the game encourages you to attack with, e.g., a group of Daleks– it isn't usually possible to mix and match different aliens in one attack. So it's a pretty faithful theme for a simple card game. The theme breaks down a bit if you try to ask the question, "Who am I as a player?" As a player you are rooting for the Doctor in the locations you've played, and cheering the enemies in the locations your opponents have played. Probably it would take a Time Lord brain to make sense of that thematically. The components are good, with nicely rendered artwork, and it's pretty clear to see what's going on. The blue player's tokens easily get hidden on the blue backs of the cards-- but that's a fairly minor niggle. The game plays in an hour, and once players are familiar with the cards, starts to get quite a bit quicker. There are always decisions to make, but I'd suggest it isn't a game to agonize over every card play: it's best played at a reasonable clip. There's lots of bluff-calling in playing the hidden attack and defense cards. There's always a trade off between doing what I want to do, and making sure I don't pass the best cards on to my right-hand neighbor– especially if those cards will let my neighbor attack me! Do I make a move now while my opponent’s defenses seem weak, or do I delay and use my reserve to try to build up a more powerful attack? When I manage to accumulate enough Time Points to buy a new card, I need to choose the right time to do that, as it effectively buys an extra action, or can save me from having to pass that killer card to my neighbor. Locations seem good– they give me victory points if defended properly, after all. But if I've been keeping an eye on who has what cards, I might think I have a better chance by passing it to my opponent and then trying to conquer it. There are lots of trade-offs to think about, but it never gets to complex and brain-melt down. I haven't yet played enough to say whether skill or luck will dominate in this game in the long run, but it doesn't feel impossibly random in my first few plays. Author: Ben D. Fuller What do you get when you bring together one woefully unprepared film nerd, two gaming enthusiasts, and one radio show at the largest gaming convention of the year? I’ll tell you what you get, three days of fun! (What were you expecting a better turn of phrase? Didn’t you see the part where I said I was a film nerd?) The trip started out great; I hooked up with Flagoon (the tall one) and Revan (the ginger one) on Friday night for a run through of True Dungeon, a literal live action version of Dungeon and Dragons, it only happens at #GenCon so this is a once a year event not to be missed for the full time gamer. After we left the Dungeon we headed out for dinner. We stopped at “Dick’s Last Resort” where they successfully humiliated us all with their unique brand of customer service. You won that round Frat guy waiter, you won that round. After dinner we headed back to the hotel that we shared, because what else screams Con experience more than a bunch of grown men sharing a room. First on the list was our chance to give “Dwarven Miners” a shot, it was my first time playing it, the others had been given a hands on tutorial by the awesome group over at Rather Dashing Games. Let me tell you, I loved it. I had a great time with it, we probably 10 rounds in the two days that I was there. Flagoon and Revan each had their own copies, so of course I had to pick up one for myself and will now be introducing it to all my friends so that they can buy their own copies. And that’s basically all we did the first the night, keep any eye out for the official DCR review, like I said up there I’m just a film nerd with a taste for gaming. Day 2 started bright and early for us, with our first interview of the day at 9:30 with the company behind “Battle of the Bulge” for the iPad. I really enjoyed the look of it, unfortunately it’s only out on Apple products and I’m an Android guy so I’ll have to just wait… If you’re reading this Shenandoah Studios, get on it! From there we wandered around the convention hall corridors as we waited for the doors to open, I got to hear about the first two days of the Con. Pretty bummed I missed them sounds like the guys had a blast, you can catch their review later this week on the site.
Going forward I’m going to try and explain what was going through my mind when I finally got into the hall, keep in mind I’m not a gaming guy like most of the people there so this was a whole new experience for me. But don’t get me wrong, I’ve been to conventions before like DragonCon and SLCNerd both of which are geared for the well rounded geek. I walked into the hall: 1. “I am way out of my league here” 2. “What the hell was I thinking? I can barely finish a game of Monopoly” 3. “Wait, this is kind of cool” 4. "Where is Rather Dashing Games? I want my own copy of the game”- For reference I should have bought it at the end of the day, because I had to carry it around with for the next 8 hours. 5. “I wonder if Revan and Flagoon will notice if I disappear into the Artist Alley” – They did, but it was worth it. 6. “I need to check my bank account, things might get bad”ß at that point I was drooling a little. So there you have it, my first six thoughts. Pretty great right? Ya I thought so too. So after I got over my initial shock we got started, hitting interview after interview with the practiced precision of a group that had done this before. (See I can turn a phrase if I need too) Around noon we took a lunch break and hit up the Steak & Shake right outside the convention center for so much needed food and a root beer. At least I had a root beer I think the others had milkshakes, how cliché. From there I took my leave of the group to wander the Artist Alley, where I got lost for an hour amongst the drawings and artwork of people that I wish I could call my friends. They had some seriously great stuff there; I’ll post pictures and reviews of each later this week. The booth that really caught my attention though was “Shadows on the Wall” entertainment memorabilia. The ladies and the one guy there were seriously great, they put with my fawning and waffling as I looked through their stash, I ended up buying three posters. Now, I have what I like to call a “collection” but a few (all) my friends refer to as an obsession with posters and prints, more specifically Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. They had some great pieces but not the one that I was looking for, and the awesome staff went out of their way to assure me that they would be able to get one for me in October. At this point I was ready to just give them money. If you ever run across them (they hit a ton of cons, mostly east coast) you need to stop by and see them, and buy something. Then send me a picture of said purchase so that I can drool over it with you. At this point we were approaching the end of the day, and we were all tuckered but had one last even to hit. A pizza party with some of the great Authors that were there, while Revan and Flagoon went to that I went home and took a nap, in preparation for more Dwarven Miner that evening. ( We played 6 rounds that night, you win Rather Dashing) Well there you have it; an outsider’s not so detailed review of GenCon2013. Would I go again you ask? Yes, in a heartbeat. I’ll be forever grateful to the guys over here at Dungeon Crawlers Radio for inviting me to tag along, and will hopefully be doing a lot more with them in the future so keep an eye out. Until then, Little Ben is out. After much anticipation it has finally been revealed who the 12th Doctor will be. There has been much speculation as to who will be playing this iconic role. BBC America did a great job with setting this announcement up quite well by playing the final episode of the 10th Doctor, David Tennat. It was a very emotional way to get this started. All of us have our favorite Doctors. I am sure there are many of you who are sad to see Matt Smith go. However, if you recall, there was quite a bit of backlash over the choice of Smith 4 years ago. I am interested in see what the overall reaction is to the new Doctor. With no further ado, the 12th Doctor is……….. PETER CAPALDI! For those of you who don’t know, Peter has been in many British shows including Torchwood and a previous Episode of Doctor Who. Show runner, Steven Moffat, said that Peter was up for the role of 11th Doctor, but it just didn’t feel right. Now is Peter’s time. Interesting side note... Peter Capaldi, was in World War Z and played a doctor for the World Health Organization.... Doctor W.H.O. love it! Do you think this a good choice? |
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