Mass Effect Andromeda, finally done.

Since I have had this game from release day, I thought it about high time I sit down and finish it.

Now I was/am a huge fan of the original Mass Effect Trilogy. I grew to love the characters, the story, the game play and even didn’t mind the crappy ending of the final act. It was a series about the journey and not the destination. A great sci-fi game and story told over three games.

Now Mass Effect Andromeda comes along. I dove in and started playing and then I trailed off and stopped, started and stopped again. I just didn’r have the love or drive like to play like the previous Mass Effect trilogy.

Here the setting is another galaxy 600 years away from Earth. The task is to colonize this place and all that fun stuff. After some ship, space and alien issues your craft arrives in the Andromeda galaxy. Now it is time to start exploring and start to colonize. Well that is until some group of aliens called the Kett begin to cause issues. Plus there is this wyrd robot tech on planets that needs to be interfaced with that might be the key to terraforming. Plus the majority of the big Arks (ships full of friendly known aliens) have gone missing during/ after their arrival in Andromeda. Your sibling is in a coma, your dad is dead, the  bureaucracy is all heads up their ass and you are the new Pathfinder for the mission.

You know all the staples needed to get you out exploring the galaxy.

The Kett. The bad guys for this game.

IT review

Well by now most fans and cool people have seen the 90’s t.v. version of the novel ”IT.”

A tale told in 1958 with kids and then again 27 years later with adults. The gist of the tale is a town where kids get killed a lot then nothing and then years later it starts again. All this is centered around the town of Derry, Maine. The antagonist is  clown named Pennywise that is not what he appears to be. The clown is a façade for some more sinister and ancient and he loves gobbling up kiddos!

A group of kid dubbed “The Losers Club” face their fear of the town, bullies and the clown. The they get older and have to deal with this all over again.

The 90’s version is pretty unwatchable now, but it gets the point of the story across.

IT has been remade for the big screen with an R rating and may be the best Stephen King book to movie adaptation yet (not saying much as the majority of his book-movies are pretty bad).

Alright then. “IT” review!

The year is 1988 and we are in Derry, Maine. Kids are going missing. Adults don’t seem to care. The summer has started. One group of kids calling themselves/ being dubbed the Losers Club have all seen scary stuff and a creepy clown. They also share a group of bullies who of course torment them. Of course the kids face their fears, their bully and the creepy not clown clown monster. We all kind of know what is going  on here, well unless you live under a rock or just hate horror movies, books or clowns.

 

“IT” hits the high points of the book and 90’s mini-series (for those who haven’t read the tome) fairly well: clown. monster. kids. bullies. fear.

fear facing/strength in numbers.

“IT” is way better than the 90’s version for sure, but the film is not perfect. There are a lot of glaring changes that I have no idea why they did them.

Neibolt House

The Weasel/ The Brain is gone



The perennial heel manager of the 80's wrestling world has left us, Bobby "The Brain" Heenan.

He had a fantastic list of wrestlers he managed: Mr. Perfect, King Kong Bundy, "Ravishing" Rick Rude, Big John Studd, Rick Flair, Lex Luger, Paul Orndorf and Andre "The Giant."

He also had a laundry list of real turds too: The Barbarian, The Missing Link, Red Rooster, Ron Bass, and The Brooklyn Brawler to name a few.

If his pre/ post match interviews weren't enough his ringside shenanigans were even better.

Then there was his turn in the announcing booth. Once he was behind the mic in the booth or at ringside that is where The Brain really shined. His commentary was varying levels of inappropriate, hysterical, nasty and terrible. Yet, it was exactly what wrestling needed. A heel doing commentary. You loved to hate him. You loved and hated what he was saying about wrestlers in the ring. It was just great stuff!

"Ya listen to me, you'll go to the top! You don't listen to me, you're never heard from again!"

"Parts Unknown, it usually means Downtown Newark."

"The Flying Jalepeno"

Bobby's name for Tito Santana's flying forearm finishing move

"You know they say money can't buy happiness. Give me 50 bucks and watch me smile."

"The two things that scare me most about wrestling fans is that they're allowed to vote and allowed   to reproduce."

"A friend in need is a pest."


"Oh, you humanoids... "
          in reference to the fans

"Oh my, what a GREAT scientific move! A punch to the head!!"


"You know that show of sportsmanship....the respect for each other, the enthusiasm they have....makes me sick!"


A great leader of heels and villains for many years.


R.I.P.  Weasel.

D&D post game 9-9-17 part 2

The party may have caught the pirates in the fort  flatfooted, but that was soon to change!

 

The barbarian flew into a rage and charged a small group of pirates near a bunch of  cages. Since he was infused with the power of Gruumsh (he is a ½ orc )he didn’t notice the caged captives yelling for help. He was too focused on killing the group of people in front of him.

 

The rouge ran forward and was able to knock a pirate into a nearby bonfire. He had little time to appreciate the poor fool rolling around on fire before he was set up by the poor fool’s buddies.

 

The paladin summoned the power of the…moon!

Wait.

What did he do?

He channeled a moon bean that hurts people?

Ok then he did that!

 

The monk began dispatching the pirates along the wall. Speaking of the pirates on the wall. They turned the ballista inwards and began to fire at the people assaulting their fort. They must have been nervous because their aim was off.

 

The remainder of the camp surged forward to join the scrum! The quarter master unleashed pistol shots at the barbarian, but he didn’t seem to notice. The cook and bosun ran forwards near a group of fellow sea dogs. The captain kept up his inspiring words. The first mate began to yell for help from within the small cabin the captain had emerged. From the rear of the camp came a large human draped in armor made from crocodile skulls. He held a wicked looking trident in one hand and in the other, a chain leading to the collar of a giant gnarled and ugly crocodile.

Bosun Smee, the 1/2 ogre

 

It was this gentleman that the rouge fixated upon. He though if he could kill him with a few arrows then the croc might go crazy and start attack nearby pirates. A pair of arrows flew and did mention to strike the crocodile armored brute, but it only seemed to anger him.

 

The monk continued to defeat opponents along the wall. The barbarian killed, killed and killed some more. The paladin continued to harness the power of the moon to damage people. Well he also unleashed a devastating flamestrike ( from his newly acquired magical halberd )upon a small circle of pirates surrounding him that reduced them to cooked meat and bones.

 

D&D post game 9-9-17 part 1...

The conclusion of the pirate adventure…

 

As the party prepared to make land fall a small ship was rapidly approaching. As the boat came closer it was seen flying the city flag of Stonekeep. Aboard the smaller ship was the paladin of Torm coming to aid in the coming battle. As he joined the party, Morgan “The Greaser” had pressing business back in town. The boarded the smaller ship to return to town.

The barbarian, monk, rouge and paladin began to trek through the forest, following the river, in hopes of quickly finding the pirate fort. After an hour of walking they heard a group of people approaching. The rouge, monk and paladin decided to hide and see who was approaching. The barbarian was having none of that and just waited for whomever it was to approach.

It was a small patrol of gentlemen dressed as one would think pirates to dress. The barbarian announced himself and they saw the monk who was not able to hide successfully. He said they were looking to join up for  a life of a river pirate and could be of some use aboard ships.

Of course the pirate patrol agreed to take them to their camp to meet with their captain. They also made note of all the fancy gear the two warriors were carrying. As they led them toward the fort, the pirates drew weapons and prepared to attack the unsuspecting warriors. That was until the rouge snuck up behind the pirates and dispatched one of them and gravely wounded another. The monk and barbarian turned with a confused look on their faces…until they say that the pirates had weapons drawn. Battle was joined and the patrol was quickly dispatched. They tossed the bodies off the small trail they were on and continued toward the fort.

A few miles later the trail led them to the pirate base. What they saw was a 20’-30’ moat surrounded by sharpened wooden poles. This was all in front of palisade walls that stood roughly 10’- 20’ high in spots. A single gate lead into and out of the fort. There were a pair of ballista on the front walls aiming toward the forest. Towers were at each of the four corners and it appeared several guard manned the walls. The forest was cleared for roughly a quarter mile around the fort. It was going to take some effort to approach without being seen and taking fire from the wall.

As they discussed how to deal with the approach the sun started to set. Another patrol left the fort and the party waited in the woods to ambush them. Ambush them they did! They cut down the second patrol quickly and then formulated a plan. The rouge was to sneak over the wall and open the gate. Simple.

Well nothing is ever simple.

D&D pre-game 9-9-17

If last game was any indication, then the pirates will preform about like this!

The fort is found.

It is full of salty dogs.

They will soon probably all be dead.

YAR!

Game weekend!

Wizard World Chicago 2017 1st time!

Almost two Fridays ago I made my first trip to Wizard World Chicago.

I guess it is the mid-America version of an early Comic Con.

This giant Hulk statue was a greeter at the entryway.

Holy crap so much stuff to see. There was a lot of loot, comics, art and toys to gawk at.

Plus celebrities on display doing their signing bit.

A few shots of cos-play.

There were a lot more people around, but I was busier looking at stuff than people.

Never seen anyone as Mysterio before.

Neat-o!

Dude was Bazooka! My favorite costume at the convention that day.

"DIG IT!"

and 

"Hey brother!"

Mansions Madness 2nd Edition......ugh!

Remember way back when I reviewed Mansions of Madness 1^st edition, or as I refer to it  the “ Unfriendly Tiny Card and Token House Search Monster Adventure” ?

Well if not here you go……(LINK HERE)

Not a Fantasy Flight game without a ton of tiny cards and tokens!

Now I got the chance to try the 2^nd edition of this game?

Why?

Well my loving wife thinks it might be better/ more fun than the 1^st edition.

Why?

Well I guess because it uses a computer application to run the run instead of a human.

WOW ! An app can tell me what is going on and ruin my game with rando encounters and such instead of a real human. We do live in the future!

So... of course we played it because I love my wife and maybe the computer will not be as harsh and annoying a person running the game. Right? An unthinking and unfeeling machine should go a little easier on us. Right?

Whatever.

It is not Fantasy Flight without "special" dice.

Mansions of Madness 2^nd edition. It is the same game as pervious with the differences being the playable characters and needing a tablet or nearby PC to play the game. There are still the stacks of tiny cards and a ,albeit smaller, amount  of tokens to throw on the tiles. Yup the various locations are built using tiles again. There are a pile of figures for characters and monsters. There are…ugh…puzzles. This time the dice are official Fantasy Flight. They areD8’s with a few blanks a pentagram and a magnifying glass symbol on the sides. That feels more like it. Fantasy Flight and their normal dice with wacky symbols instead of numbers.