Tyranny

To my delight I discovered that Steam had a free weekend for the game Tyranny, so I jumped on it and had a blast.

What makes Tyranny a good bet to begin with is the fact that it's made by Obsidian Entertainment. Obsidian was founded by ex Black Isle Studios (Baldur's Gate, Planescape: Torment etc.) people and their games are well known amongst fans if good computer role playing games (crpg's).

In their catalog of games are hits like Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic 2, Fallout New Vegas, South Park: the stick of truth, and Pillars of Eternity.

Tyranny is set in a fantasy world set between a bronze and an iron age, where Kyros the Overlord has conquered most of the world. Amongst his most powerful servants are the Archons, beings of immense power, and the oldest of them is Tunon the Adjudicator. You play as Tunon's servant, a fatebinder, tasked with helping take the last “free” parts of the world.

At the start of the game, you can play through a conquest mode consisting of a series of events that took place in the recent past. Each segment is broken down to a series of sieges, battles and invasions explaining how the two main armies, the Disfavored and the Scarlet Chorus conquer the land. You job as an adjudicator was to help and settle arguments. You see, the two armies hate each other and no matter what you choose, you will anger someone while earning the gratitude of another.

This intro is so good because every choice you do affects the game from the start, which gives your character a place in the world. Too many games just drop your character fully formed and with no history right in the middle of everything.

I'm not going to spoil anything, partially because I don't want to, and partially because I didn't play too far since I wasn't sure I would be able to keep my save. So I have only played a bit, but I tried a couple of different builds.

The game itself has a cool art style, the game play is smooth and the general feel is really good. The gameplay itself is highly customizable, with lots of options for difficulty, how combat works and whether you want to play in iron man mode (perma death) or if you want the consequences of your choices to show up. I love the last feature, and here's why.

You can quite easily push your weight around, and some people like the Scarlet Chorus respond to physical threats, gaining you respect with the faction while others get angry if you, say, kill prisoners. As you make these choices, you see how they will affect things, which is great since I might not know, but my character definitely should. This gives a greater level of immersion to me, but if you don't want to know, you can turn it off.

I so wish more studios would learn the power of options.

So from this weekend I played nine hours, and I am definitely getting this game. It's a proper crpg but at the same time not as impenetrably dense as I found Pillars of Eternity to be. Gold stars all around.

Well, that is it for today, until next time, have a great week!

Truth or Fiction

Okay, what do the following things have in common:

French Kissing

French Toast

French Tip Manicure

French Horn

French Braid

French Fries

If you answered; none of them are French, then congratulations! Yeah, you can also add to that list the beret and the croissant. None of these things really have anything to do with France, except for popularity there and the ongoing concept that things are classy if they come from France.

That's what today is all about. Misconceptions.

The croissant is Austrian, the tip manicure was created by Max Factor in Hollywood and French Kissing seems to be connected to Alexander the Great. Let's crack on.

It seems that for the longest time, people assumed that Machiavelli's great work The Prince was satire. This explanation came up to counter the accusations that it was a thoroughly immoral book. I've read it several times and I promise you, it's neither funny or immoral. It's much worse: The Prince is practical and utterly pragmatic. Even cynical if you wish, but it's not funny, I promise

You may have heard about how when a Pharaoh died, they slaughtered his servants and buried them in the same tomb, so that they could keep serving their god-king in eternity. Seemingly, this actually happened, but not always and mostly just in the earlier dynasties. I guess a civilization that spanned over 3000 years has to change a little from time to time.

One of the standard go-to's when people describe how brutal and cruel the Spartans were, is the fact that they killed all deformed babies. And it's true, they did. But so did everyone else. For millennia, pretty much every culture ever, used to quietly get rid of babies that would grow up as nothing but a burden, because life was much harder back then. It seems monstrous to us, (and it is) but that's how it was.

Finally let me ask this: who expected the Spanish Inquisition?

If you answered: no one, then you have been watching too much Monty Python. In fact they gave everyone 60 days notice so that they could get their affairs in order. Further more, they asked every accused person for a list of their enemies. If their accuser was on said list they usually let them go and arrested the accuser instead. Beyond that they were a terrible, awful organization. But fact is fact.

Another fact is that we're done for this time, and until next we meet, you should have a good week!

Really scary

April 25-26 1986.

The Chernobyl disaster. The worst nuclear leak and or contamination outside of the detonation of an atomic weapon.

It's been 22 years, and the name still inspires dread. Lethal plutonium exposed to the open air. People fleeing the local town of Pripyat, media in a frenzy.

I remember those days, it was pretty damn scary. Talk of radioactive fallout on the wind, poison in the water, you name it. Of course, that actually never happened, we were just fine.

But ever since those days, the names Chernobyl and Pripyat have held an eerie fascination for me.

What I have for you today is all about that. A nifty documentary about the disaster, and a visit to the exclusion zone. I hope you enjoy them, as that's all I can manage. It's unusually hot here and my brain is having a bit of a meltdown all on it's own.

Here are the links, I think it's easier for all this way, rather than embedding them. Until next time, stay safe, have a great week and don't play with plutonium.

Two days in the exclusion zone:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AdgVcL3Xlkk

The Disaster:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ziOusobGDVQ

Are they still funny?

You may well have never heard of Nicholas Pileggi, but you should have heard of his arguably most famous creation; Goodfellas.

I love Goodfellas, it's one of the best movies ever made in my opinion, and Pileggi wrote the book as well as the screenplay. What you may not know is that he researched the book together with his wife, Nora Ephron who used the materiel to write a movie of her own; My Blue Heaven (1990).

When I discovered that fact, a storm of memories invaded my brain and I just had to re-watch My Blue Heaven (MBH for short).

I first saw MBH some twenty - twenty five years ago and I loved it. In a nutshell the story is this;

A mobster, Vincent Antonelli (Steve Martin) is placed in the witness protection program and put under the supervision of Agent Barney Coopersmith of the FBI (Rick Moranis). But life in small town America is not exactly what a man like Vinnie is used to, and he has some... difficulties settling in. Particularly when running across local assistant DA Hannah Stubbs (Joan Cusack).

What may not be immediately apparent is that MBH is essentially a comedic take on what happens after Goodfellas, that ends when Henry is testifying, since in case you haven't figured it out, Henry and Vinnie are the same person.

Most of the comedy comes from the culture clash between Vinnie and the local town, the day and night personalities of Vinnie and Barney and the wonderful dialog.

To my surprise however, I didn't like it as much as I remembered. It is a great comedy, to be sure, but time must have gilded my memories a bit too much. I still recommend it wholeheartedly though. Go watch it.

With my reaction to My Blue Heaven being what it was, I decided to test another old favorite. Funnily enough it also has a tie with Goodfellas, but through an actor this time. I'm talking about;

My Cousin Vinnie (1992).

Starring Joe Pesci, Marisa Tomei, Ralph Macchio and a host of faces familiar from all kinds of movies and TV-shows.

Here we have two young guys from New York who get arrested for murder in Alabama. Now they didn't do it, you the viewer know this, but they fit the bill, and the locals want to fry them in the chair. Enter cousin Vinnie, smart mouth lawyer, and the boys only hope.

The comedy here is built on clashing cultures and warring personalities. The Alabama judge Haller is not amused by the leather wearing, swearing attitude of the Yankee Vinnie, who in turn detests the entire area, especially after a few night of no sleep. Any one who has had to go to work after 3-4 nights of no/bad sleep will sympathize with the frustrated bleary eyed Vinnie. Vinnies relationship with his fiancee Mona Lisa Vito (Tomei) is equally explosive. Their idea of flirting is pretty similar to arguing. At least I couldn't tell the difference at first.

An interesting aside is that multiple lawyers have applauded this film for it's accuracy when it comes to practicing law and the entire court room setting. In fact, a glance at IMDB's trivia section yields this:

The American Bar Association's publication, the ABA Journal, ranked the film #3 on its list of the "25 Greatest Legal Movies”.

End quote. This comes from the fact that director Jonathan Lynn has a law degree, and wanted the meat and bones of the movie to be realistic.

I can absolutely say that My Cousin Vinnie holds up 100%. This film is still as funny as it was when I saw it the first time. It's an absolutely must watch movie.

And that's that. Until next time, have a great week!