Projects – Page 67

Geekly TV: February 6, 2015

Agent Carter

Kyle’s Review

This was the best episode of Agent Carter to date. I loved the focus on Dottie. Her eerie training in Russia’s Black Widow program—yes, the same program that produced the Avengers’ Black Widow, yay—was spot on, and we got a fire hose of Dottie as a character in the opening sequences. The visceral action of her handcuffing herself to the bed showed how ingrained her training is and proved unsettling.

Even better was that Carter got out from behind the desk in earnest, while the men around her in the SSR soften their chauvinist stance. We got a hint that maybe Thompson picks on Peggy for the same reason schoolboys tug on schoolgirls hair, and that works, but I didn’t completely buy the SSR director’s decision to send Carter to Russia. The series has painted the SSR as such pigs that it’d take more than a couple of agents dying for him to send Carter in someone else’s stead. You can’t have an agency that’s so over the top sexist and then expect us to believe that they’ll spin 180 degrees and give Carter a chance. Still, I’m glad they did. But Carter got a little help from her friends.

The guest stars injected some much needed energy: Dum Dum Dugan and Peggy have a sweet rapport. In fact, the great chemistry between these two actors undercut what should have been a stronger scene between Thompson and Peggy, when Thompson revealed to Peggy that he had killed innocents.

Hopefully this episode was a sign of things to come.

Verdict: Just the momentum swing Agent Carter needed for its story’s second half.

The Flash

Jim’s Review

This week’s episode focused somewhat on personal relationships. It led to a couple of touching moments between Barry and his father that ran the risk of being a bit hokey, but actually worked well for me. Caitlin and Barry’s night out was a little bit on-the-nose, and drunk Caitlin wasn’t always easy to take, but it felt like believable character development. As with most things with this week’s villain, the story felt a little underdeveloped. I think that may have been the product of needing to split time with last week’s villain to further the FIRESTORM subplot.

Speaking of last week’s villain and the FIRESTORM subplot, I think Cisco really shined this week. For those of you who don’t read the comics, this will be a bit of a spoiler, but if they do decide to let Cisco become Vibe on this show, his exchange with Pied Piper gave us a nice little preview. Cisco showed us just enough to let us know he can handle himself better than we probably expected, but not so well that it’s unbelievable without some explanation.

On its own, this episode was another solid entry. Some of the secondary plotlines took small steps forward, and it was entertaining as ever, but the real standout this week was, for me, the tag with Grodd making his first appearance on the show. We still haven’t seen him talk, and we don’t know if he can yet at this point, but I really applaud the show for taking a chance on a character who is going to be difficult to portray in any sort of satisfying way. It will be a huge challenge, but I’m excited to see it happen.

Kyle’s Take

Jim and I agree. Peek-a-boo may have been the rogue of the week, but Cisco took center stage. Not only did he handle himself better than we thought he would, he stepped out of the goofy sidekick role and added some substance. It doesn’t hurt that Cisco and Pied Piper play well off each other, too. In fact, Pied Piper is such a better developed character that you forgot about the villain of the week.

I was disappointed with how The Flash portrayed Peek-a-boo. If you read the comic, she has a heart-breaking backstory, one where you might root for her. Here, she’s just a clichéd girl in love with a bad boy. Yuck.

And with Cisco carrying a heavy load, this week’s yucks came from Caitlin. Barry and Caitlin’s wild night felt forced. It did complement the weight of Cisco’s side story and illustrated Caitlin’s inability to move on from Ronnie, but with Ronnie/Firestorm set to return, it’s like Jim said, it’s too “on-the-nose.” You knew nothing could come of Caitlin stepping out because Ronnie waited in the wings. Still, we got introduced to Linda Park (more on her in our secrets page), and that’s not a bad thing.

It was also nice to see Barry’s bio-dad Henry, too, but this episode had a lot more marking time than usual. It wasn’t as bad as Arrow—Arrow’s been running in place for most of the season—but this episode was little more than a bus stop for the impending Firestorm, Rogues, and Reverse-Flash episodes.

Phew. Tack on an Atom crossover and we have a lot to look forward to in the future, but sorry, Jim. Grodd remains a tease. I can’t wait to see how they handle him, too and perhaps we’ll see him in episode 14 just before the return of The Rogues, but next episode is “The Nuclear Man.” Bring on Firestorm.

Verdict: A solid episode but more could’ve been done with the rogue of the week.

Run deeper into The Flash’s lore with our secrets page.

Arrow

Jim’s Review

This week’s Arrow brought the conflict in the Glades, and Brick’s campaign to an end. I can’t say the resolution to the problem was satisfying. A guy who is meant to be invincible was ultimately defeated when he was simply hit harder. That felt too much like an anti-climax, and there were some other unfortunate areas where disbelief needed to be suspended a little too much. Specifically, character motivations were unclear, if not completely unbelievable. The Glades are burning, but Ted decides to throw in and help in the fight because Laurel asked him? The show’s reasoning behind an Ollie/Malcolm teamup is fundamentally flawed. If “Only the student has hope of defeating the master,” Ollie would need to train under Ra’s, not Malcolm.

There was some really rough dialogue. Much of it was delivered in flashbacks by child actors portraying Ollie and Tommy as children, so I would normally be forgiving, but anyone who says, “Mummy,” and isn’t referring to an undead monster needs to be stricken with something heavy.

Speaking of Ollie, he came to town in this episode, but the homecoming came at the tail end, and I can’t help but feel the conflict with Felicity that blunted the reunion was manufactured.

It wasn’t a terrible episode, but I’m afraid it’s really just another entry in a season that hasn’t lived up to last. The promise of a rematch with Ra’s could breathe life into season 3, and give the writers an angle to work in the long-term. I think that’s where the hope is here.

Kyle’s Take

Arrow proved that it has little if any direction with this episode. Brick’s story arc ended like all bad anime filler arcs end: little fanfare for the “main” villain and few–if no–repercussions for the main characters. It’s like the writers decided they’d slum it with a few Brick episodes, while the source material gave them ammunition for the “real” story.

But unlike an anime getting too far ahead of a manga’s creator, Arrow has decades of source material. There’s no excuse for this. Pick an antagonist/story/thread or threads/protagonist and run with it.

Are they building up to an epic battle with Ra’s? Maybe. And if so, who’s fighting Ra’s? “Only the student has hope of defeating the master” could mean that Merlyn plans to fight Ra’s, but we know that Merlyn’s a selfish SOB—I don’t care what the flashbacks this week say, he brainwashed his daughter into killing someone—so it’s unlikely Merlyn throws down with the Demon’s Head.

Putting that on the backburner, you have to ask yourself, is a battle with Ra’s the final goal? I don’t know. Maseo has name-dropped Waller in the last three or four flashbacks, so ARGUS could factor into the finale and/or future—but ARGUS hasn’t done anything. I’d like to see Slade/Deathstroke and/or The Suicide Squad again. But has anything lead to justifying his/their return?

Then we have to discuss another character that didn’t make an appearance in this episode: The Atom. In the comics, Starling City is Star City, so Atom converting Starling into Star has him literally pushing Arrow out of his own city. Once Atom completes the transformation from Starling City to Star City, is the Arrow still relevant?

I hope he is, and I hope the show remains relevant while introducing new heroes, anti-heroes, and villains.

Verdict: While not the worst episode this season, this episode does little to nothing in stopping Arrow’s tailspin.

Check out our Arrow secrets page for this week.

Quiz Answers: Modern Comic Book Character Timeline

The modern age of comics saw a ton of new characters and these are just a handful. Let’s see how we did, putting them in the right timeline.

All 6 correct) You really know your stuff. Everyone’s green with envy, especially Hal Jordan fans.

4-5 correct) You may have gotten some wrong but you’ve got more lives than a cat and a face that resembles kitty litter.

2-3 correct) You didn’t do too well. Perhaps you should merge your consciousness with Magneto’s.

0-1 correct) Looks like you need to develop your precognitive ability.

Timeline: Modern Age Comic Book Characters

We’ve had timelines for comic’s gold, silver, and bronze age. Now, we’ll give the modern age of comics some love. Can you guess the order in which these comic book characters made their first appearances?

Trivial Pursuit

Trivial Pursuit started the trivia game genre and popularized the party game. Many people know how to play, but for those of you who don’t: Players test their knowledge of little known facts, traveling a spoke and wheel board in order to earn pie pieces, representing the various slices of factual tidbits. Mmm…trivia pie.

We’ll get to the game’s review in a bit, but first, here’s a word from our game specifications overlords.

The Fiddly Bits

Designer: Scott Abbot and Chris Haney
Publisher: Hasbro
Date Released: 1981
Number of Players: 2-24
Age Range: 12 and up
Setup Time: nominal
Play Time: up to 90 minutes

Game Mechanisms:
Roll/Spin and Move
Set Collection

Game Flow:

Players pick a circular playing piece with six pie-shaped holes. You roll a single six-sided die and travel the wheel and spoke board, hoping to land on “pie spaces.” Each space – including the pie spaces – is color-coded to denote the kind of question you’ll be asked by your opponents. You must collect all pie pieces by answering a trivia question correctly while on a “pie space” and then travel to the board’s center (the same space in which you started) and answer a final question chosen by your opponents.

Trivial Pursuit Overview

Review:

I liked Trivial Pursuit as a kid. I grew up with it, and it introduced me to both the trivia and party game genres, but it hasn’t aged well.

It suffers from the roll/spin and move mechanism and best illustrates why this mechanism frustrates gamers. You can correctly answer fifty questions in a row, but none of them count unless you get the pie space question right. Why? This places too much emphasis on dumb luck and less on actual knowledge, skill, or strategy. That’s not a good thing for a trivia game.

Close Up of Pie Space

Then there’s the problem that plagues most trivia games, the one when you play with the guy or gal that has too much meaningless knowledge for their own good. You never want to play against that person. It tips the balance of play to much in their favor.

Despite these shortcomings, Trivial Pursuit has inspired countless games. Cranium sidestepped the randomness of a pie space question by having a separate deck for more important scenarios. Wits and Wagers – the game that inspired Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader – evens the playing field against those know-it-alls by having a player answering a question and the others betting whether or not they got it right.

But even though there are a lot of better options, I still enjoy the occasional game of Trivial Pursuit. We have to play with house rules (like so many correct answers on non-pie-spaces equals a pie piece), so the game doesn’t drag for hours.

Verdict: Another roll/spin and move game that hasn’t aged well. It also falls victim to the pitfalls of a trivia game, but remains a classic none-the-less.

Pandemic

Today, we review the cooperative game phenomenon, Pandemic. Four virulent diseases rip their way through the world at the same time, and it’s up to you and your teammates – the other players at the table – to save humanity from annihilation.

We’ll get to the exciting parts in a bit but first, we have to feed you some technical jargon.

The Fiddly Bits

Designer: Matt Leacock
Publisher: Z-Man Games
Date Released: 2007
Number of Players: 2-4
Age Range: 8 and up
Setup Time: Less than 5 minutes
Play Time: 45 minutes or so
Game Mechanics:
Action Point Allowance System
Cooperative Play
Hand Management
Point to Point Movement
Set Collection
Variable Player Powers

Pandemic Overview

Game Flow:

Players choose their role or pick one at random. Each role comes with a playing piece and a special ability unique to them. Place your playing pieces on Atlanta (since that’s the home of the Center for Disease Control), and then you set up the board.

Each city depicted on the board has its own infection card that you could see in the infection card deck. Pull three infection cards from the top of the deck and place three disease cubes on each of the cities shown on these cards. Then, draw another three infection cards and put two disease cubes on these cities. After that, you draw yet another three infection cards and place one disease cube on each one of these cities. All drawn infection cards go to the discard pile, and you’re ready to play.

Infection Cards and Rate

You get four actions during a turn and you can spend an action moving from one city to another, removing a disease cube from a city, building a research center, or curing a disease. Once you complete your actions, you have to draw two cards for your hand and then a certain number of infection cards based on the game’s infection level.

Diseases can spread with epidemics and outbreaks, and there are plenty of ways to lose: running out of a particular color of disease cube, exhausting your player card draw pile, or the planet experiencing too many outbreaks. But there’s only one way to win: cure all four diseases.

Cure Disease Tokens

Review:

Pandemic appeals to a wide variety of gamers. Whether you think of Ebola wiping out humanity or zombie apocalypse, Pandemic is topical and hip. I love the game mechanisms behind the Epidemic cards. Each Epidemic card has you move up the infection rate, infect a new city from the bottom of the infection deck, and shuffle the infection cards in the discard pile and place them on top of the infection deck. This escalates the spread of disease and incubation intensity.

Epidemic Card

The game’s easy to learn and since Pandemic is a cooperative game, you can teach someone as you go. Like most Matt Leacock games, Pandemic has various difficulty settings. With Pandemic, you can play with all or some of the Epidemic cards, so you can ease newbies into its fast-paced gameplay. You feel the pressure of saving the world.

Verdict:

Pandemic doesn’t just earn its cooperative game phenomenon status; it serves as a great gateway game for people who don’t play a lot of tabletop games: a must play.

Geekly TV: February 2, 2015

Constantine

Kyle’s Review

We’ve entered the home stretch for this season of Constantine (or for the series completion as it hasn’t had the best ratings, hasn’t been given an episode extension for this season, and hasn’t been picked up for next year), and we see John assembling Voltron in this episode.

Zed and Chas take a break, so there’s room on the schedule for one of John’s old mates, Ritchie (Jeremy Davies). What ensues is an interesting episode that takes notes from The Twilight Zone. The bulk of the story revolves around some college kids stumbling upon an Egyptian ritual, allowing them to travel to another dimension. Unfortunately for them, a serial killer calls this dimension home. It doesn’t end well for the college kids, but that doesn’t matter. The consequences of these actions don’t amount to much in the Constantine world. What does matter is how Ritchie responds to these kids’ exploits.

He’s their professor and led them to the ritual. In short, Ritchie pulls himself out of his funk – he pops sedatives like Mentos – and promises to help John in the future. Just in time for the big showdown in two episodes.

This was a nice episode. John comes off as more compassionate than he has in previous episodes. You can actually see him inspire others to join the fight against the growing evil. Davies as Ritchie adds some much needed depth to the cast as well. You can’t depend on Chas and John for everything, and Constantine continues to build. But I’m afraid this series won’t have the chance to grow to its full potential. It’s not a good sign that NBC hasn’t ordered for another season or more episodes to complete this season.

Verdict:

Dig deeper into the netherworld with our Constantine secrets. But we warn you; they contain spoilers.

Grimm

Kyle’s Review

We didn’t get a lot of Rosalee and Monroe – because they’re on their honeymoon – so other characters got some much needed focus. Wu finds his footing with Team Grimm, Renard helps Juliette with her hexenbeist problem, and of course, we get plenty of Juliette.

I don’t buy why Juliette refuses to tell Nick that she’s a hexenbeist: she’s afraid he’ll turn on her and take her life because she’s wesen. I’m not opposed to her staying silent about her ailment; I just question her logic. Yes, she wouldn’t want to concern Nick as this should be a temporary condition. No, Nick wouldn’t kill you because he’s besties with Rosalee and Monroe.

I do buy why Juliette would ask Renard for help. His mother is responsible for her being a hexenbiest, and he has the best chance of fixing her problem. We also get a tip of the hat as to why Renard can’t contact his mother. She’ looking for Renard’s and Adalind’s baby. And when will we get back to that story again?

One story Grimm hasn’t abandoned is Sergeant Wu’s. Wu shined in this episode. He proved that he can hold his own, but I didn’t care much for the paint-by-numbers murder mystery. This week’s wesen of the week may have had a great ability, but that doesn’t forgive lazy writing.

One last thing. I enjoyed the goofy “Ghost Seekers” angle in this story. They added some great comedic relief to an otherwise serious episode.

Verdict:

This week’s episode is more of a mixed bag. Renard’s return to the fore. Good. Juliette hiding her hexenbiestness from Nick. Not so Good.

Constantine Secrets: February 2, 2015

Welcome back, Ritchie

If Ritchie looked familiar, he should. Jeremy Davies reprises his role as the hapless professor. He was in Constantine’s pilot. He’s also one of John’s Newcastle Crew, and that means that he was there for the loss of Astra’s soul. Perhaps that’s why he pops pills.

We get to know Ritchie a little better in this episode. John respects him because Ritchie may be as good a magician as John, but he specializes in quantum magic. This episode shows Ritchie doing his thing as he reshaped the alternate dimension in a blink of an eye. We’ll have to see if he meets a nasty end like he does in Hellblazer.

Who’s that man in the mirror there?

Gary Lester makes another appearance in this episode—sort of. He’s another member of John’s Newcastle Crew and the architect behind John’s headquarters. We catch a glimpse of him drinking at the beginning and end of this episode. Unfortunately, the mirror we see him in sees the past and Gary’s no longer with us.

Ivy League or Ivy University?

The pilot introduced Ritchie as an Ivy University professor, and this episode showed him at a podium with an Ivy University seal. But did you know that the Ivy University exists in the DC Comics Universe? Ray Palmer (yes, the same Palmer/Atom played by Brandon Routh in Arrow) is another professor at Ivy University.

Bradstreet Hall

You might have noticed a sign that read Bradstreet Hall on an Ivy University class building, while Ritchie and John discuss their course of actions. The name Bradstreet should sound familiar to Hellblazer fans. He drew several iconic Hellblazer covers over the years. Check out one of his covers above.

Debut Games for German Designers

We can praise German game designers for bringing us the modern tabletop game Renaissance. Things got off to a shaky start, but let’s see if you can match the following German game designers with their first game.

Designers: