The Gaming Den

I was rather put off by Dr. Strange when we're explicitly told that the titular character and the major NPC that objects to his style and methods must work together to defeat the great evil... and then Strange goes off and defeats it, completely and for all time, entirely by himself.

There were lots of problems like that with the plot, but that one completely brought me out of immersion. Fantastic special effects, weak plot. Marvel isn't investing the resources in the writers, and it shows.

Rocket Raccon being a cleptomaniac ass almost resulted in a TPK. Otherwise I enjoyed the film

Didn't like GotG2 at all. Felt like...nothing. Nothing but jokes and special effects. What did any of the characters (besides Starlord) even do?

I just watched it last night with my daughters (10 and 6). The six-year-old had a few spots that were a bit scary for her (which I expected, but she really didn't want to be left out). I enjoyed the heck out of it. Despite the setting, it felt more like D&D games I've played and enjoyed.

Not to spoil anything, but when Drax leaped into the creature's mouth, I've been exactly there. It also didn't work out for me. Likewise, we've had 'Chaotic Neutral' do things when I was a teen that made everything harder than it had to be... 2nd edition Thief Characters.

Finally, when Gamora says, 'If he's evil, we'll just kill him', I could hear every player I've ever had.

In any case, I found it a very relatable movie to my table-top D&D experience.

Watched WW last night...the whole time, I was just wishing I could watch Captain America instead. The two seemed to be basically the same movie, but with Cap doing it better.

phlapjackage wrote:Watched WW last night...the whole time, I was just wishing I could watch Captain America instead. The two seemed to be basically the same movie, but with Cap doing it better.

I'm sorry you didn't enjoy the movie. Personally, I found a lot to like. As far as 'origin movies', this one did a better job than most in terms of getting to the hero character. I don't want 90 minutes of Peter Parker and 5 minutes of Spiderman in a Spiderman movie. Considering that it covered her time as a child, they did a lot of 'being a hero' in this movie. I also felt there was a fair bit of social commentary, but I didn't feel like it was beating me in the face.

I'd like to take my oldest daughter (turning 10), but I'm concerned that *minor spoiler*

the implied deaths of an entire village will upset her

deaddmwalking wrote:I'm sorry you didn't enjoy the movie. Personally, I found a lot to like. As far as 'origin movies', this one did a better job than most in terms of getting to the hero character. I don't want 90 minutes of Peter Parker and 5 minutes of Spiderman in a Spiderman movie. Considering that it covered her time as a child, they did a lot of 'being a hero' in this movie. I also felt there was a fair bit of social commentary, but I didn't feel like it was beating me in the face.

Yeah, I'm just a little worried that I'm being plagued by "the-old-man-hates-everything-new-but-everything-old-is-better-itis". But...

I mean, it felt like it really did a lot of origin stuff. I didn't time it exactly, but I think it was close to like 50% of the movie. And the origin stuff...pretty terrible. Little kids, greenscreens galore, plots that make no sense...all bad stuff in my eyes.

For me, the comparisons with Captain America were unavoidable. Maybe it was because Cap did it first, that I thought they did it better? Dunno.

One thing occurs to me about Wonder Woman's plot.

Ares could have ensured his victory simply by not giving Steve the funding to get to Veld in the first place. I know that he's the god of War and all, so facilitating conflicts is kind of his bag, but really.

I think it's very weird that the folks who complain about boob plate as sexist are also the ones championing Gal Gadot in boobplate as an empowering film.

Gal Gadot is not a chesty woman by Hollywood standards but I see articles going "dirty fanboys WANTED a wonder woman with huge tits! but we DEFIED them!" when Hollywood Wonder Woman still has boob plate that dramatically increases the actresses's bust.

The presence or absence of boob-plate, in and of itself, isn't enough to determine whether a film (or other media) is sexist, though there is a significant correlation. The fact her choices and actions drove the narrative; not every choice involved 'trying to get a man'; and ar no point did she need to be heroically rescued by a man, taken together, create an empowering narrative. When taking a comic book character, you take a tremendous risk by making them unrecognizable. Given that constraint they did a decent job of taking inspiration from Hoplite Armor. Bare arms and thighs are historically accurate - the bustier obviously less so.

Also, the boobplate issue is a little different when the wearer is nigh-impervious to blades.

deaddmwalking wrote:The presence or absence of boob-plate, in and of itself, isn't enough to determine whether a film (or other media) is sexist, though there is a significant correlation. The fact her choices and actions drove the narrative; not every choice involved 'trying to get a man'; and ar no point did she need to be heroically rescued by a man, taken together, create an empowering narrative. When taking a comic book character, you take a tremendous risk by making them unrecognizable. Given that constraint they did a decent job of taking inspiration from Hoplite Armor. Bare arms and thighs are historically accurate - the bustier obviously less so.

Yeah - given that Wonder Woman's traditional costume is pretty much a bathing suit, I thought the hoplite armor was a serious step up. At least I didn't feel like the goal of the movie at any point was to get my dick hard.

OgreBattle wrote:I think it's very weird that the folks who complain about boob plate as sexist are also the ones championing Gal Gadot in boobplate as an empowering film.

Gal Gadot is not a chesty woman by Hollywood standards but I see articles going "dirty fanboys WANTED a wonder woman with huge tits! but we DEFIED them!" when Hollywood Wonder Woman still has boob plate that dramatically increases the actresses's bust.

I didn't want a Wonder WOman with huge tites. I wanted a Wonder Woman who looked like she could legitimately bench press a bus.

hyzmarca wrote:I didn't want a Wonder WOman with huge tites. I wanted a Wonder Woman who looked like she could legitimately bench press a bus.

Then you'll probably have to wait until the Keatinge/Campbell version of Glory makes it to the screen.

I found the morality in the Wonder Woman movie to be extremely muddled - they couldn't seem to make up their minds as to what they were preaching.

Which may have been the point, since there were some similarities to what happened in the movie and some political positions I've come across more and more during the last decade or so.

No spoilers here. Let's just say that they're trying to have their cake and eat it too, and claiming that expecting to be able to do so is a sign of moral superiority.

Occluded Sun wrote:I found the morality in the Wonder Woman movie to be extremely muddled - they couldn't seem to make up their minds as to what they were preaching.

On the contrary, it was pretty simple. Even good people do bad things. Our problems can't simply be blamed on evil people doing evil things - even good people trying to make the world a better place can cause problems. Despite all the bad things that happen in the world there's also a lot of good that happens. Humanity should not be doomed by our worst impulses because we are defined by our best impulses.

Or to put it into Shakesepeare's words:

Hamlet, Act 2 Scene 2 wrote: What a piece of work is a man! How noble in reason, how infinite in faculty! In form and moving how express and admirable! In action how like an Angel! In apprehension how like a god! The beauty of the world! The paragon of animals!

You mean the point was that there are shades of gray and nuance and complications in human morality? That's hard for a black-n-whiter to understand.

Thought that the point was that Germany would have won the war if they weren't backstabbed by traitors secretly playing both sides.

phlapjackage wrote:Didn't like GotG2 at all. Felt like...nothing. Nothing but jokes and special effects. What did any of the characters (besides Starlord) even do?

It won me over as soon as Baby Groot started dancing to Mr. Blue Sky. Anyway, not everything needs to be Citizen Kane; sometimes jokes and special effects are all I need in a movie.

GOG2 gets props from me though, if nothing else it managed to make deep cut Marvel Cosmic lore accessible to general audiences.

So...

Mantis: Put Ego to sleep, buying time for the rest of the team. Also, she was adorable.

Gamora: Reconciled with Nebula; killed giant space beast.

Yondu: Inspired Star Lord; sacrificed himself to save his adopted son.

Drax: Drax is Drax. He talked about famously huge turds and engorged nethers. That's all he needs to do because he's Drax.

Rocket: Stole batteries. It was shitty and dumb, but it led to one of the big set piece battles and drove the story into act 2.

Groot: He was the vessel in which ELO was delivered to my entertainment experience. For that alone he deserves 3 Oscars and a night with your lady.

hyzmarca wrote:

OgreBattle wrote:I think it's very weird that the folks who complain about boob plate as sexist are also the ones championing Gal Gadot in boobplate as an empowering film.

Gal Gadot is not a chesty woman by Hollywood standards but I see articles going "dirty fanboys WANTED a wonder woman with huge tits! but we DEFIED them!" when Hollywood Wonder Woman still has boob plate that dramatically increases the actresses's bust.

I didn't want a Wonder WOman with huge tites. I wanted a Wonder Woman who looked like she could legitimately bench press a bus.

In terms of "looks like can bench press a bus" Dragon Ball Super introduced "alternate universe lady Brolly"

That's the only kind of Kale I like.

https://twitter.com/RitaGamer/status/878294627304054784
A streamer/youtuber i follow (TheMightyJingles) appearantly managed to break an actual fucking tank at Tankfest 2017 in England. And the Tank in question just so happens to be the Sherman Fury from the Brad Pit Movie titled Fury.
HOW DO YOU DO THAT???

Stahlseele wrote:https://twitter.com/RitaGamer/status/878294627304054784
A streamer/youtuber i follow (TheMightyJingles) appearantly managed to break an actual fucking tank at Tankfest 2017 in England. And the Tank in question just so happens to be the Sherman Fury from the Brad Pit Movie titled Fury.
HOW DO YOU DO THAT???

\

The Sherman is pretty reliable for a World War II tank, but the truth is that it has a lot of parts under extreme mechancal stresses just from moving its weight. They need regular maintenance and just because of normal wear and tear.

Tanks break all the time. They're carried around on trucks on roads, because most of them can't get from A to B without breaking any other way. Tracked vehicles in general are prone to breaking down, but tanks are also extremely heavy and extremely powerful to the point of easily snapping steel components if used incorrectly.

Such is the price of protecting your mobile gun crew from common infantry weapons.

So, Eternal is another F2P computer CCG. It's MTG meets Hearthstone, with the mechanics being very close to MTG (although they shuffled some mechanics between the 'colors') with a friendly Hearthstone-like interface and a few HS-style tricks that work in a computer game and not with physical cards. It plays pretty okay.

What lost me was the intro campaign's narrative. The framing story is a distinctly Western-style whiskey-voiced cowboy talking about all the other characters... who are a gonzo high-fantasy royal family. No connection between them and the dude is ever made. The creative direction there is so wtf that all I can think is that they were also trying to rip off Bastion or something.