From the same universe of books of Old Man’s War (John Scalzi) (8★★★★★★★★), John Scalzi tells a story of a human colony on another planet. It’s a new colony, so mostly tells the hard conditions and situations that they have to face.
They are far from home. And contact with the former homes is prohibited. Most do not know why. Just focus on creating the initial conditions for bigger and definitive immigration waves. Wild animals, inhospitable weather, and a lack of resources and technologies make everything a very dire situation.
You follow the story of John Perry, the same protagonist from the original novel. This story takes place many years after the events of the second book in the series, The Ghost Brigade. Perry and his wife Sagan are now trying to have a normal civilian life with their new daughter Zoe.
Just after watching a fun and light comedy with Sing, another channel started to show Queen of Katwe. I heard good comments when it was in theaters, so I decided to keep up the marathon.
It tells the story of Phiona Mutesi, a real life girl from the village of Katwe, in Uganda, that end up being a very good chess player. It is a very typical against-all-odds and follow-your-dream kinda story. The poor girl has to face all the prejudice for being women and poor (but not about being black, because the whole movie is basically on Uganda, which such thing is nonsense) to get a place under the sun.
Her unexpected success transformed the lives of her family and of the many people of her village. She became a celebrity at very young age, which influenced her personality. Year after year, she started to behave as a spoiled kid, believing that she was invincible. With the family support, she realizes the most valuable things in life in the end.
The acting of the protagonist, from Madina Nalwanga, is excellent. The entire media focused the attention to the beautiful Lupita Nyong’o that plays Phiona’s mother, but the real star here is Madina. Phiona is portrayed as a timid, introspective girl, but Madina played in a way that it still makes the character very, very likable. You cheer for her. Even being in a chess match!
The other kids are also surprisingly good. It is always a challenge to work with children.
My main complaint with the story is the sub-plot of her older sister. I don’t know if the book that was based on uses this character to a greater purpose, but in this motion picture this subplot, while gives hints about the whole situation of Phiona and her mother, does not go anywhere relevant.
The visuals are great. The poverty is displayed in a way that brings emotions but is not there to provoke shock. The African colors and styles gives it a very distinctive and beautiful look.
Following yet another recommendation from Rock Paper Shotgun, I decided to give this small little indie game a try.
The game address the theme of governmental surveillance. The Big Brother. It’s definitively a reference to the US’ Edward Snowden case from 2013.
But unlike what traditional dystopian stories generally do, Orwell puts you in the shoes of the oppressing regime. To be more fair, you control a simple security agent, which makes you more a pawn than a King. It’s a similar position that you take from the excellent Papers Please. Following the rules and d questionable things is part of your job. You need to put food on the table after all. After the first negative (or at least not constable) impressions, you will get used to the job, and things get easier to digest.
Your official job is to track terrorist threats, listening to phone call, see video camera feeds, and read social media from targets. But these tools are available to spy on virtually all citizens, potential criminals or ordinary folk alike.
At very beginning of the game, the country suffers a major terrorist attack and the country is in a political crisis. It’s your job to find the responsible ones. You even have a lead. He might be innocent, but your investigation opens connections. Connecting one person to another, like teacher-student, neighbors, father-son, brings you new potential suspects.
A wonderful thing that I noticed while playing is that, without direct intervention of the game, reading the news, I created some conspiracy theories. I was trying to link dots, trying to see the “big picture”, trying to make sense of the chaos of facts and information. The game throws at you several misleading information, and like real life, you will have to filter what is relevant and what is not. It fascinated me.
The mechanics of the game are quite unique. Not revolutionary, but unique. If the theme is close to Papers Please, the gameplay reminded me of Her Story. Using trial-and-error and some deduction, you try to reveal the missing gaps. If you didn’t like Her Story, don’t worry, here the story is more traditional. Everything is scripted like and adventure game. You will not make a relevant change in the course of the story during game.
As a short game, I liked very much. I heard that they are doing a sequel, which is good news. I will be glad to try it also.
PS: yes, the game Orwell is a direct reference to Eric Arthur Blair (aka George Orwell) and his book 1984.
In just a few days, I finished this game. It is the reincarnation of the classic Tomb Raider series from Crystal Dynamics. I was not a PlayStation gamer at the time, but this one I liked. Not mind-blowing, but I had my good moments.
This Lara Croft is a more mature and complete character. It was designed to be modern. She will have many more adventures for sure.
The universe of Tomb Raider always have the extraordinary and magical. The story suffer mainly because we cannot anticipate what is possible and what is not. The boundaries are not clear to the player. So when we are about to understand what the hell is going on, the game shows a whole new layer of problems that probably involves magical items or supernatural stuff. It’s like going in an Orlando’s theme parks: one step you goes from Happy Potter to Spider-man.
The mechanics are a bit of combat, a bit of stealth and a lot of cinematic timed actions. It is decent in all these aspects but not great in neither. The collectibles are easy enough to be a valid pursue. This is why I probably finished it entirely.
At a certain point, I was a bit lost, and careless about the main plot and played to reach the end. Nice but not great. Next game!
Last year I watched the Mad Max franchise revival in the theaters. And loved it. And it seems that world loved it too. The game was launched later, so it was surrounded by expectations. But the developers promptly affirmed that the game is not based on the movie, but in the universe in a broad sense. The protagonist is also Max, but like in the movies, it is a bit different Max from the original movies.
First, the visuals. The movie got a lot of notoriety mostly because its breathtaking visuals. The game… well, I will praise its graphics, however, they are not as impacting as, just as a disclaimer. The game uses a lot of post-processing effects to give a perfect look of a post apocalyptic world. The high speed camera and distortions are also very well employed. In general, the game have a good aesthetic.
It makes a reasonable good use of the franchise. The game have the same desolated atmosphere where the automobiles are essential part of living. However, it also brings a sense that that whole world is, in fact, empty. It’s good to traverse the map in a turbo’ed engine, but doing it often becomes repetitive and boring. It seems that they created the map but did not have enough ideas to fill it with.
The main plot, like most recent open-world games, are paper thin. Max is famous for being quite a guy, the same for most of the people that lives there. The ones that talk are, in fact, annoyingly talkative, like your sidekick master of the technicians. Nothing against him being playing ugly, but he is annoying and pretensions. He says all the time how good he is. He says all the time a lot of things.
In contrast, what could potentially be the major companion disappears after minutes of the gameplay. I’m talking about the dog. Just like the thematic cousin Fallout, there is a dog that we presume that will follow the protagonist all along. But it is not true here. He is put away and rarely shows up. Sad.
If the main story is ok, the same cannot be said about the side missions. The mission givers are super shallow and their tasks are generally repetitive. Not much fun. The collectible items and objectives are divided between the fun and achievable and the boring that you should let it go.
Reducing the threat level is really a nice concept. It reminds me of Shadow of Mordor. Not the same, but similar.
Overall, I had a good time playing it. It was a bit unremarkable, but fun.
