Oz the Great and Powerful is a bad movie from both a feminist and general standpoint, and fails to even be entertainingly bad.
Tag: Single post review
Bionic Heart Demo – Guest review
This game is an excellent case study in the expectations that one can assume depending on whether the protagonist of a visual novel is male or female. I don’t like to judge a book by its cover, but this game doesn’t do itself any favors on that front.
Long Live The Queen – Guest review
“Enjoy your princess raising sim & try not to get her killed too quick!” is my sister’s encouraging message for this game.
You play as Elodie, the crown princess of the kingdom, whose mother has just died. She is still too young to inherit, however, and so must wait a year before she can assume the crown.
Unfortunately for you, things get complicated fast.
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Cinders – Guest review
I thoroughly enjoyed this one. From the game’s blurb, I expected lots of interactivity and a deeper exploration of the situation presented in the original fairy tale, and that’s exactly what I got. The writing is solid, the characters are believable, and the plot is a delicious mix of moral nuance and deep characterization spiced with a
dash of political intrigue. The whole thing looks very professional – the music is nice and the art is gorgeous. There’s a lot of interactivity, too. Cinders isn’t a complete blank slate, but her personality is malleable enough that I really feel that I have a good deal of agency in the story. I’d even say that her character hits that excellent balance where her few preset traits serve only to enhance the depth of the choices.
Fatal Hearts (Werewolf side) – Guest review
I like the Saturdays free model, so let’s keep doing that.
Fatal Hearts Part 2 (Part 1 here)
Okay, so. Let’s go with the werewolves this time and see what
happens.
happens.
Empire of Ivory
This book has some really interesting dragons and dragon-related culture and nice travalogue bits. Laurence is increasingly annoying, and there’s a lot of stuff that’s questionable if you know history or think too long. If you didn’t mind him at all last book and don’t know much about British history, and probably nothing about African history either, you’ll probably like this one.
Fatal Hearts – Guest review
The best Christmas gift is getting out of writing the day’s post! Enjoy a videogame review instead.
Fatal Hearts
“Probably not a dating sim” my sister writes to me as her endorsement. Technically true, but by a narrow margin.
For most of it, I felt it was decent. I didn’t find anything overtly objectionable about the writing and overall plot direction for the first half or so. I am glad that it tends to give me choices to do what I would conceivably do in real life, were I in the same situation…usually.(Spoilers for the rest.)
Black Powder
I found Black Powder to be better than the previous Temeraire book, Throne of Jade, setting-wise. This time, they have to travel back across the land, and it’s some good travelogue stuff. The description of the route they have to take is actually quite creepy, with a bit about how the oases are disappearing, the water has dried up, and the cities are dying. The dragons are better developed as well, with Temeraire finally getting a chance to meet some wild ones.
The human aspect is not so good, though.
Throne of Jade
Throne of Jade is even more easily summed up than the last one.
Did you thoroughly enjoy His Majesty’s Dragon? Then you’ll certainly enjoy this one.
Did you think it was okay, but not the best thing ever? You’ll probably still like it.
Do you have knowledge of how terrible this timeperiod actually was, and trouble turning off your brain? Probably should skip this.
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His Majesty’s Dragon
This month only, we’ll be spending our Saturdays on this, because Farla has to finish her gift fanfics before the deadline and that takes free time.
His Majesty’s Dragon is honestly a really easy book to describe.
Do you like historical British people being historical and British? Would you like it even more if there were dragons that don’t really affect that historical Britishness in any way and also the main character immediately converts to modern social standards whenever challenged rather than spend time prejudiced? Do you like stories about a lot of decent people with occasional bad ones everyone doesn’t like, and with everything working out neatly?
Then off you go! You’ll enjoy the book thoroughly.
Other zombie fiction – I am a Hero
So. Speaking of zombie fiction, I just read a zombie manga, I am a Hero that’s surprisingly well constructed. One of my issues with zombie fiction is people failing to take into account how zombies function. They might learn some factoid (like the popular “zombies are attracted to noise”) and there might be a scenario where people even use that to their advantage, but then they forget about it again. Here, people seem to learn and carry forward those lessons. Also, these zombies are actually a lot less predictable than the standard ones, so they’re far harder to deal with.