Saturday, July 17th, 2010
Citadels is an easy but fun card game where the players compete to construct the most impressive city by amassing wealth to spend building various districts (docks, university, cathedrals, etc). The game ends when a player plays an eighth district then everyone's city is scored (and certain bonuses added) to ...
Posted in Games | 2 Comments »
Thursday, July 15th, 2010
I think it is best to say two things right up front : firstly, The Spoils is a collectable card game just like Magic the Gathering. If you are not familiar with this form of gaming the rest of this review is going to be impenetrable, but in short each ...
Posted in Culture, Games | No Comments »
Monday, May 31st, 2010
A Christ-like fool of few words wanders around Mexico having surreal adventures before ascending into a tower to find a wise alchemist who becomes his guide on a journey to the titular mountain. Is it a Christian allegory? Is it a celebration of hippy mystical excess? Was it made in ...
Posted in Culture | 3 Comments »
Wednesday, April 14th, 2010
A motley band of adventurers descends into the inky darkness of the caverns in the quest for the fabulous artefact rumoured to lie somewhere deep within. Working together they should be more than a match for the terrifying creatures that wait in the shadows, but each member knows that only ...
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Monday, April 12th, 2010
World War IV blasted the surface of the Earth to a barren wasteland across which roving bands of scabby bandits compete for sparse food supplies. Vic (Don Johnson!) is a young man who has teamed up with a telepathic dog to survive - Vic finds food for them both while ...
Posted in Culture | 4 Comments »
Sunday, April 11th, 2010
Mr. Fox was a world class chicken thief but gave it all up years ago for a quiet middle-class existence when his child was born. He still yearns for some old-time larceny and naturally jumps at the chance for one last big score. Things do not go entirely to plan ...
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Sunday, January 3rd, 2010
James Cameron has always been an interesting film maker. Although on one level most of his films could be classified as pulpy genre-related fare, they usually have a more interesting subtext lurking below the explosions. Previous Cameron films have investigated such themes as mother/daughter relationships, humanity's fear of the unknown, ...
Posted in Culture | 4 Comments »
Thursday, December 17th, 2009
I own all of the Star Wars DVDs except for one - The Phantom Menace. Even the weakest of the others have a certain charm, but TPM was stupid through and through. Even the title is stupid! I have yet to work out exactly what the titular menace actually was. ...
Posted in Culture | 5 Comments »
Tuesday, November 3rd, 2009
I love the Settlers of Catan board game, so when an iPod version appeared in the App Store for $6.49 I grabbed it straight away. Dubbed "Catan - The First Island", the app includes everything in the core game, I assume more games based on the Catan expansions are on ...
Posted in Computer | 1 Comment »
Thursday, July 30th, 2009
Remember Space Ace? The massive machine at the back of the greasy arcade you used to frequent? The one that played a cartoon that you had to react to? The one that cost twice as much as any other game? Of course you do. Well now it is back, and ...
Posted in Computer, Games | 3 Comments »
Monday, July 27th, 2009
The New Zealand Film Festival is on at the moment, giving us all the chance to see exciting, stimulating cinema from around the world; and also this film.
Paper Solder is a Russian production set in the weeks before the launch of Yuri Gagarin's famous day trip. The story focuses on ...
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Wednesday, July 8th, 2009
Hyperionby Dan Simmons
After years of hearing "Hyperion is the bestest book evar!", I finally managed to read it. And frankly, it is pretty good.
Set in the far future where humanity has created The Hegemony of Man, a culture that spans many planets thanks to portals ("farcasters") that have openings many ...
Posted in Culture | 2 Comments »
Friday, May 15th, 2009
Once again Hollywood dredges up the corpse of a much-loved TV show to desecrate with a pointless remake that misses the whole point of wha....Hey wait a minute! My brain just typed that automatically. Even now I have trouble gathering my wits to write the truth, so shocking and unbelievable ...
Posted in Culture | 10 Comments »
Tuesday, May 5th, 2009
Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell: A Novel by Susanna Clarke
Possibly going for the title of "Most English Book Ever Written", Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell tells the unlikely story of two magicians in the early 1800s, a time when magic is all-but forgotten. The two title characters have very different ...
Posted in Culture | 3 Comments »
Tuesday, March 10th, 2009
Watchmen is a difficult movie to categorize. As an adaption of an existing work, it is excellent. The attention to detail is amazing, the cast all fit well with their characters and an impressive amount of the plot is exactly the same. A for effort.
As a stand-alone work, Watchmen is ...
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