Seth Harris

Movie Review – Tank 432

Tank 432 (2016)
Written & Directed by Nick Gillespie

Tank-432

A group of soldiers fights an enemy unseen. They tow a couple hooded prisoners in orange jumpsuits along behind them. The war is happening in what appears to be the English countryside. They stumble across scenes of massacres, other soldiers killed in brutal and obscene manners. On the run from a strange figure that appears seemingly out of nowhere, the group holes up in an abandoned British bulldog tank in a field. As their minds begin to splinter and they are plagued with disturbing dreams, the dreaded reality of the situation starts to become clear.

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Origins 2017: The Networks

The Networks (Formal Ferret Games)
Designed by Gil Hova
Artwork by Heiko Günther and Travis Kinchy

Damn, I love this game! The premise of The Networks is that each player is running a fledgling television station. Each network has a minuscule deck of three starting shows with zero viewers, one star, and one advertisement. The game is played over the course of Five Seasons, or rounds, with each season 1, 2-3, and 4-5 bringing different television shows with different requirements and benefits. At the end of each season, income/expenses are calculated, and viewership (the main scoring mechanic) is tallied. At the end of season 5, whichever network has the highest number of viewers wins.

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Movie Review – Kong: Skull Island

Kong: Skull Island (2017)
Written by Dan Gilroy, Max Borenstein, Derek Connolly, and John Gatins
Directed by Jordan Vogt-Roberts

kong skull

It’s 1973, and the United States is withdrawing from the war in Vietnam. Lt. Colonel Preston Packard (Samuel L. Jackson) isn’t happy about what he sees as an admission of defeat and a mark of shame for his helicopter squadron. His crew is assigned as escorts for a science expedition to an uncharted island in the Pacific, led by a government contractor, Bill Randa (John Goodman). British tracker James Conrad (Tom Hiddleston) and photojournalist Mason Weaver (Brie Larson) round out the crew. They arrive on the island and immediately being dropping explosive to map out the density and structure beneath, but they awaken something ancient and furious, Kong.

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Origins 2017: Cestina Saga & Games on Demand final thoughts

Cestina Saga
Written by André La Roche

fate-core-cover

Cestina Saga is a deep fantasy setting using the Fate Core mechanics. Akin to Game of Thrones, this is a world where the power rests in the hands of aristocratic houses. Unlike GoT, the fantasy elements are more prevalent with centaur-like Khorsa, vegetative fey, and wolf people intermingled with humans.My game was by Mark Diaz Truman, co-founder of Magpie Games and co-author of Urban Shadows, Cartel, and co-author on a seemingly endless stream of great gaming content. I’d played Cartel and Magpie’s still in development Zombie World with Mark before and knew this would be a fun experience.

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Origins 2017: Impulse Drive

Impulse Drive
Written by Adrian Thoen

The game space Powered by the Apocalypse occupies has become fairly bloated in the last five years. With any mechanic that becomes popular, there is a high chance of the output becoming diluted with less than stellar content. One genre that designers have made multiple attempts at using the PbtA framework with has been space opera/science fiction action. It’s this type of game that designer Adrian Thoen has sought to leave his mark on with the ever evolving Impulse Drive. Thoen credits Firefly, Mass Effect, and Farscape among his influences and they can be felt in every aspect of the game.

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Steam Summer Sale 2017 Recommendations

steam-summer-sale-2017

It’s that time again. Gabe Newell opens the floodgates and lets loose the sales. Here are some of my recommendations for games I’ve spent a lot of time on in the past year and thought you might enjoy. If you missed my list from last year, check out my Steam Summer Sale 2016 Recommendations for more titles.

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Movie Review – Power Rangers

Power Rangers (2017)
Written by John Gatins
Directed by Dean Israelite

The-cast-of-The-Power-Rangers-Movie

In the Pacific Northwest town of Angel Grove, five disparate teenagers are brought together when multicolored stones are unearthed. These coins imbue them with superhuman powers and lead the quintet to a subterranean alien craft buried millions of years prior. The inhabitants of this vessel, Alpha 5 and Zordon, inform the youths of an impending attack on their planet. The only way to stop this growing force of evil is to somehow unlock the power within their coins and become the Power Rangers, defenders of life.

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Origins 2017: Cthulhu Dark

Cthulhu Dark
Written by Graham Walmsley

cthulhu dark

Cthulhu and Lovecraft are so prevalent in the world of tabletop it is often hardly worth noticing when someone comes along with these names slapped on their product. Every noteworthy game like Munchkin, Gloom, or Smash Up will inevitably have the Cthulhu expansion. The tabletop RPG world has Call of Cthulhu at the top of a virtual mountain of madness of games (Trail of Cthulhu, Age of Cthulhu. Delta Green, etc.). There are some great games amongst all of this, but for me personally, I am very picky about how horror and games meet, especially the weird fiction genre of Lovecraft. My preference is always for a role-playing system that is light and allows for a lot of creative freedom at the table. I know this is not everyone’s style of game, but after writing lesson plans for weeks and weeks and weeks, if I run something I want to have to do very little prep-work and be surprised by my players and where they take the story. Cthulhu Dark seems to do just that.

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Origins 2017: Urban Shadows

Origins 2017 has come and gone. My time at the convention is spent mainly in the Games on Demand space, a venue where around eight GMs offer a menu of tabletop RPGs. For the cost of two generic con tokens, you get a space at a table and a one-shot game of approximately four hours. This was my third year to attend Origins and it felt very different from the previous years. I’ll get into more of that in my wrap up post on Saturday.

One great addition to Games on Demand was a Boarding Pass system. In years past, the line for GoD at Origins has been an unwieldy beast, requiring players to stake out a spot an hour or more in advance or risk losing their chance at a game they wanted. There was some discontent between GoD and con-goers who thought their pre-purchased tickets applied in this venue the same as their spot at a Shadowrun or Pathfinder table. The compromise of the Boarding Pass was beautiful in my opinion. Onto my first game of the con:

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Twin Peaks: The Return – Episode 7 Breakdown, Thoughts, and Analysis

Part 7
Written by Mark Frost & David Lynch
Directed by David Lynch

David Patrick Kelly in a still from Twin Peaks. Photo: Suzanne Tenner/SHOWTIME

We begin with Jerry Horne standing in the middle of the woods distraught and confused. He calls his brother Ben who picks up and Jerry slowly, but panicked explains his car has been stolen. Throughout the conversation, Jerry doesn’t seem to know exactly when and where he is, finally shouting “I think I’m high!”. The incident is never resolved later, but I assume Ben sent someone to look for Jerry or Jerry came to his senses. While positively dripping with that dry humor of Lynch, I was reminded of the Secret History book and how it cataloged many incidents of Twin Peaks residents wandering into the woods only to encounter entities from the Lodge. I wonder if Jerry met something while he was out there.

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