Many reviews...
Sep. 27th, 2013 11:43 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alobearCinder by Marissa Meyer:
Now, I think I'm probably being very unfair on this book, as it is clearly an adaptation of a very well known fairy tale. However, despite an initial interest in the futuristic setting, I subsequently found the story deeply derivative and wholly predictable. It also suffered from the fact that it was recommended to me as a good representative story, because the heroine is Chinese - only she's not! While the story is set in New Beijing, the protagonist is highlighted as being 'from Europe', which presumably makes her actually the only white character in it! I didn't find the characters very engaging, either, and never got to like Cinder herself at all.
Falling Skies comics by Juan Ferreyra and Paul Tobin:
I love the Falling Skies TV series, so the idea of comics filling in some of the gaps in the timeline was very appealing to me. They turned out to be well drawn and mildly entertaining, but not very much actually happened. They provided some small additional character insight, but not much else, and overall they felt a little flat.
The Visitor by Lee Child:
More Jack Reacher! This audiobook suffered terribly from a narrator who gave all the female characters dreadful voices - either breathy bimbo or scratchy harpy - which made it very difficult to imagine them as real people, and also made them sound ridiculous. Several of his male character voices were over the top, as well, which gave the whole thing a rather cartoon-y feel. Still, the plot was as ridiculous as ever, and Reacher himself managed to escape with an almost normal voice, so I still enjoyed it, even though I figured out who the killer was long before Reacher did. He also maintained his unlucky-in-love status, with another mundane break-up, which is far more realistic and less traumatic than the scenarios I had been imagining at the end of the last book.
White House Down:
An unashamedly cheesy, 80s-style action thriller, and highly entertaining. It presented a situation in which the protagonist at one point said to the President of the United States - "Can you *not* hit me in the head with the rocket launcher while I'm trying to drive?" Tremendous fun.
New games discovered on the group holiday (resulting in a whopping Amazon order when I got home...):
The Firefly Game:
I played this four times in five or six days, and it got better with each play. It's a sprawling game of many aspects, but not actually that complicated once you get the hang of it. It definitely rewards repeat play, and also careful choice of winning scenario, and I would love a copy of my very own, if only it was available to buy. It can take a very long time, depending on the number of players and the speed of decision-making, but I was quite happy to invest many hours in it, and didn't get bored.
Dixit:
A great, fun, short game, which takes six players - not many of those around! It requires some imagination, and can result in players feeling excluded if people use private jokes or obscure references too much. However, in general, it's a lot of fun, and allows you to find out how strange your friends' brains are, and how well you know them. The pictures on some of the cards are highly disturbing, but I'm very much looking forward to seeing the additional ones provided in the expansion sets (yes, I bought all of them).
Small World Underground / Realms:
I already liked Small World, but always thought it would benefit from more variety. Enter two variations, one involving a whole new set of races and abilities, and one providing a range of different map types - perfect! This broadened out the game considerably and enables more frequent play without too much repetition.
Dungeon Lords Festival Season:
An expansion for my all-time favourite game! It combined some aspects/characteristics from Dungeon Pets and added in a whole extra section, with some new minion actions to spice things up a bit. The rule book was highly entertaining, as always, and the extra bits for the game were quite fun, though I'm not sure how much it really added, except extra time. It might be difficult to separate out the bits from the original game in order to play vanilla, but I don't think I'd always want to have the expansion in.
Rattus Africanus:
An expansion to Rattus, which provides more map space and a couple of extra jobs. Only a couple of players really made use of the new aspects, but the overall score was only a couple of points between those two and me (and I basically played an original game strategy), which shows that the expansion doesn't unbalance things. It's a good game, with lots of different ways to win, and I think I'd like to try it again now I know how the new bits work properly.
Alchemist:
I didn't get on very well with this. It's a bluffing/bidding type of game, which I'm generally bad at, and the game play wasn't interesting enough to keep me enthused.
Mice and Mystics:
Most definitely the highlight of the holiday! We played a chapter every night with slightly different players (I played every time!) over six nights of the holiday. One of my favourite parts of the day was standing up after dinner and calling, "Mice to the study!" We inadvertently cheated horribly, making the game much easier than it should have been, but we still failed a couple of times and had to try again the next night. There's still plenty more gameplay left, and we're planning on starting a new campaign (playing to the correct rules) to see if we can make it all the way through over several months. Can't wait!
Now, I think I'm probably being very unfair on this book, as it is clearly an adaptation of a very well known fairy tale. However, despite an initial interest in the futuristic setting, I subsequently found the story deeply derivative and wholly predictable. It also suffered from the fact that it was recommended to me as a good representative story, because the heroine is Chinese - only she's not! While the story is set in New Beijing, the protagonist is highlighted as being 'from Europe', which presumably makes her actually the only white character in it! I didn't find the characters very engaging, either, and never got to like Cinder herself at all.
Falling Skies comics by Juan Ferreyra and Paul Tobin:
I love the Falling Skies TV series, so the idea of comics filling in some of the gaps in the timeline was very appealing to me. They turned out to be well drawn and mildly entertaining, but not very much actually happened. They provided some small additional character insight, but not much else, and overall they felt a little flat.
The Visitor by Lee Child:
More Jack Reacher! This audiobook suffered terribly from a narrator who gave all the female characters dreadful voices - either breathy bimbo or scratchy harpy - which made it very difficult to imagine them as real people, and also made them sound ridiculous. Several of his male character voices were over the top, as well, which gave the whole thing a rather cartoon-y feel. Still, the plot was as ridiculous as ever, and Reacher himself managed to escape with an almost normal voice, so I still enjoyed it, even though I figured out who the killer was long before Reacher did. He also maintained his unlucky-in-love status, with another mundane break-up, which is far more realistic and less traumatic than the scenarios I had been imagining at the end of the last book.
White House Down:
An unashamedly cheesy, 80s-style action thriller, and highly entertaining. It presented a situation in which the protagonist at one point said to the President of the United States - "Can you *not* hit me in the head with the rocket launcher while I'm trying to drive?" Tremendous fun.
New games discovered on the group holiday (resulting in a whopping Amazon order when I got home...):
The Firefly Game:
I played this four times in five or six days, and it got better with each play. It's a sprawling game of many aspects, but not actually that complicated once you get the hang of it. It definitely rewards repeat play, and also careful choice of winning scenario, and I would love a copy of my very own, if only it was available to buy. It can take a very long time, depending on the number of players and the speed of decision-making, but I was quite happy to invest many hours in it, and didn't get bored.
Dixit:
A great, fun, short game, which takes six players - not many of those around! It requires some imagination, and can result in players feeling excluded if people use private jokes or obscure references too much. However, in general, it's a lot of fun, and allows you to find out how strange your friends' brains are, and how well you know them. The pictures on some of the cards are highly disturbing, but I'm very much looking forward to seeing the additional ones provided in the expansion sets (yes, I bought all of them).
Small World Underground / Realms:
I already liked Small World, but always thought it would benefit from more variety. Enter two variations, one involving a whole new set of races and abilities, and one providing a range of different map types - perfect! This broadened out the game considerably and enables more frequent play without too much repetition.
Dungeon Lords Festival Season:
An expansion for my all-time favourite game! It combined some aspects/characteristics from Dungeon Pets and added in a whole extra section, with some new minion actions to spice things up a bit. The rule book was highly entertaining, as always, and the extra bits for the game were quite fun, though I'm not sure how much it really added, except extra time. It might be difficult to separate out the bits from the original game in order to play vanilla, but I don't think I'd always want to have the expansion in.
Rattus Africanus:
An expansion to Rattus, which provides more map space and a couple of extra jobs. Only a couple of players really made use of the new aspects, but the overall score was only a couple of points between those two and me (and I basically played an original game strategy), which shows that the expansion doesn't unbalance things. It's a good game, with lots of different ways to win, and I think I'd like to try it again now I know how the new bits work properly.
Alchemist:
I didn't get on very well with this. It's a bluffing/bidding type of game, which I'm generally bad at, and the game play wasn't interesting enough to keep me enthused.
Mice and Mystics:
Most definitely the highlight of the holiday! We played a chapter every night with slightly different players (I played every time!) over six nights of the holiday. One of my favourite parts of the day was standing up after dinner and calling, "Mice to the study!" We inadvertently cheated horribly, making the game much easier than it should have been, but we still failed a couple of times and had to try again the next night. There's still plenty more gameplay left, and we're planning on starting a new campaign (playing to the correct rules) to see if we can make it all the way through over several months. Can't wait!
no subject
Date: 2013-10-14 06:43 pm (UTC)I can't wait to play it :DDDD