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World War WTF?

November 9, 2012

The first official trailer for World War Z, the adaptation of Max Brooks’ novel of the same name, is finally out, and it’s..well…it’s..

This trailer really left me with mixed feelings. On one hand it looks like a cool enough large budget zombie fest and I usually like Brad Pitt in his films. On the other, there are quite a few things that bug me:

  • Apart from the title and the general theme, the movie sadly doesn’t seem to have much in common with the book. This is a huge letdown, as WWZ is one of the best works of zombie fiction written to date. It’s the age-old gripe with Hollywood: if you want to base your movie on an original work, and are paying for the adaptation rights, then why on earth would you make a completely different movie?
  • The elementary family angle. Seriously, what is it with Hollywood, disaster films and the family unit? War of the Worlds? The Day After Tomorrow? 2012? Apparently 6-7 billion people dying isn’t a big enough tragedy unless it also results in a father being separated from his family.
  • Silly CGI. Instead of a massive army of shambling or even sprinting undead, we have the Army of the Dead from Lord of the Rings, sans green glow.
  • Damon Lindelof. Seriously, your movie is failing, so you bring in the writer responsible for Lost and Prometheus, which are basically huge plot holes with some story around them? Good luck with that.

I know I’m sounding a more than little bitter, so I have to point out that this is mostly fanboy rage. Who knows, the movie might turn out to be a positive surprise! It’s at least nice to see a large budget zombie movie for a change – we really haven’t seen too many of those. Still, I can’t shake the feeling of disappointment. It’s most apparent when the synopses are (rather unfairly) compared:

The book

It began with rumours from China about another pandemic. Then the cases started to multiply and what had looked like the stirrings of a criminal underclass, even the beginnings of a revolution, soon revealed itself to be much, much worse. Faced with a future of mindless, man-eating horror, humanity was forced to accept the logic of world government and face events that tested our sanity and our sense of reality. Based on extensive interviews with survivors and key players in the 10-year fight-back against the horde, World War Z brings the very finest traditions of American journalism to bear on what is surely the most incredible story in the history of civilisation.

The movie

A U.N. employee is racing against time and fate, as he travels the world trying to stop the outbreak of a deadly Zombie pandemic.

Oh well.

Posted in Movie trailers, Movies, Zombies | 5 Comments »

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Fever – a review

November 3, 2012

Earlier this year I reviewed Flu by Wayne Simmons. Fever is a sequel to the book – or rather a prequel and a parallel story. Fever exposes the origins of the virus and takes a look at the entire epidemic through the eyes of various different players. I was originally supposed to review Fever right after its publication, but never received the review copy and proceeded to forget about the whole thing until recently. Better late than never, right?

The book follows different characters and their storylines. As is typical of a structure like this, the storylines are somewhat interwoven. What made me happy were the references to Flu, seamlessly tying the two books together. Many of the things I wanted to see more of in Flu were present in Fever, for example the military aspects that felt a little detached in the first book.

There are many similarities between the two books and many of the same comments still apply. Simmons keeps his writing compact and efficient, and there’s a lot crammed into the 290 pages. At times this borders on excess, with a lot of different storylines and characters getting introduced, but it gets easier as the book progresses. The style is still very brutal and carnal, and I think Simmons still holds the title of “Author with the most disgusting zombies”, with the flu-ridden corpses (and soon-to-be ones) spewing bloody mucus from every orifice and so on.

With their similarities, we’re still talking about two different books. While Flu had a strong political vibe, with a large part of the conflicts rising from an establishment/anti-establishment setup, Fever draws more from the pool of social conflict. This is helped along by a cast of characters different from your usual zombie fiction fare, through which themes such as sexual minorities and disabilities both physical and mental are explored. This results in a book that feels refreshingly different while retaining a solid genre feel. While not as prominent as in Flu, the anti-establishment sentiment is still present, and you definitely get the feeling that the government isn’t doing a very good job at reacting the problem to say the least.

On a related note a word of possible warning: Fever is bleak – very bleak. While not quite reaching excessive, David Moody -like proportions, this book definitely isn’t a happy read. Personally, I liked it, but I understand it might not be everyone’s cup of tea. A large part of the dark humour present in the previous book is missing this time, making Fever pretty depressing at times. This is something of a double-edged sword: humour helps you relate to the characters (Shaun of the Dead being a prime example) but can easily lead to the whole thing getting silly and unbelievable. Luckily, Simmons is a good enough character writer that his characters function even with the humour turned down a bit.

Overall verdict: If you liked Flu, you’re bound to like Fever. It’s a gripping, bleak zombie read, with thoughtfully crafted characters and plenty of interesting storylines and points of view to keep the reader interested. While it probably won’t leave you feeling warm and happy inside, it’s an interesting, harsh example of a worst case zombie outbreak scenario. If you haven’t read Flu, I suggest reading it before Fever.

As usual, I picked up my copy from The Book Depository.

Posted in Book reviews, Books, Zombies | Tagged | 2 Comments »

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From the painting desk #19 – Two more for the corps

October 28, 2012

Some painted stuff for a change, with yet more troopers joining my Colonial Marine/generic scifi force.

The first is another one of Defiance Games‘ UAMC marines. While the crispness leaves much to be desired, they’re still fun to and simple to paint and make for a nice addition to the force.

Defiance Games UAMC marine

Click for a larger version

The second mini is a different story altogether. Hasslefree Miniatures‘ McKenzie has been a favourite of mine since I first saw pictures of the green on the FU-UK forum years ago. You know how some miniatures are just so nice that they almost intimidate you into not painting them? That’s what happened to me here. Eventually I managed to tackle the task and I’m very happy with how the model turned out. It’s a great sculpt, with plenty of detail without getting too cluttered. I also think that the Colonial Marine paint scheme fits the model something lovely.

Hasslefree McKenzie

Click for a larger version

As always, constructive critique and other comments more than welcome.

Posted in Miniatures, Sci-Fi | Tagged , , , | 5 Comments »

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Blood Bowl-a-rama #14 – The endgame

October 20, 2012

For me, this 2012 season of Blood Bowl is over. After playing the 13 league games and finishing third in our division of five, I made it to the playoffs – somewhat to my surprise. Less surprisingly the first playoff round proved to be my undoing, with Vikings IF sending the Drakwald Ravens packing, as well of killing one of my veteran ghouls, Karl Eye-Popper, and putting Ludwig Wightenstein in a wheelchair with a thoroughly destroyed hip. The poor wight suffered a “smashed hip” result in his first game of the season, never amounted to anything during the games he played, and received a second “smashed hip” in the Ravens’ last game. Poor Ludwig!

With my gaming part done, it’s time to look back upon the season. All in all I was more than pleased. My last season of Blood Bowl saw my orc team the Naughty Grinders finish with a 2-2-6 (wins-draws-losses) record from ten games, whereas this season the Drakwald Ravens managed a 4-5-5 record from a total of 14 games. So, fewer defeats, twice the victories and more than twice the draws. Can’t really be disappointed!

The Ravens steadily upped their game throughout the season, and before the playoffs actually had a four match long undefeated streak with two wins and two ties. The only thing I wasn’t happy about was my team’s seeming inability for violence. While a virtue outside the Blood Bowl field, 11 inflicted casualties in 14 matches is appalling, especially compared to the league (sans Ravens) average of over 21. Out of those 11 casualties no less than five were executed (tee-hee) by my number one flesh golem, Max Hurtheimer.

The more I play Blood Bowl, the more convinced I am, that this is the best game GW has put on the market. Blood Bowl combines luck and skill wonderfully – while sometimes horrible luck can bring you down no matter how good you are, most of the time the more skilled player will have the upper hand. It is an important skill in itself to minimize the role of luck, in other words the number of dice rolls you make. While I’m slowly learning the game, the more experienced players often seem to be a move or two ahead of me, no matter what I do.

What makes our Blood Bowl league especially fun is the narrative built around it on our internet forum. Press releases are made after matches, game reports are written for every game and players provide other content such as news, advertisements and rumours or even obituaries of dead players. A great example of this was the surprising death of one of my werewolves, Anti-Christian Wolff. Having just scored a touchdown, Wolff died due to amazingly bad dice rolling during a routine block against a dwarf player. The interpretation was that his heart suddenly gave out. This lead to several news items:

Ravens head coach disappointed in dwarf fans’ racist chants

This sprang from a few of our friends who were watching the game and celebrated the death of the werewolf by chanting the now-legendary “hukasta rukkaset!” which is Finnish for “make the wolf into mittens!” They were interpreted as being dwarven fans.

Dwarf fans respond to racism allegations

In this item the dwarf fans accused of racism were shocked and appalled. They claimed the chanting was a joke, nothing more. This was a parallel to several then-current events where Finnish politicians made racist comments in public, and then claimed that they had been ironic or joking.

Werewolf overbreeding: “This would be illegal with humans”

This was an adaptation of an actual news item dealing with genetic problems caused by overbreeding in dogs.

Drug scandal in the league! Warpstone overdose to blame for Anti-Christian Wolff’s death?

In which a Norse team’s werewolf comments that the combination of overbreeding and warpstone use is a deadly one, and that it is a public secret in the werewolf community.

2 in 1 furry mittens from Stockkleinemann sale!

A parody of then-current sale campaign of the Finnish department store Stockmann. Made by dwarven artisans, the luxurious leather mittens could be turned into furry ones by the touch of Moonstone™.

And so on. This is what makes our Blood Bowl that extra bit special. It’s very similar to the idea of Warpg’s I’ve often talked about.

What’s next? Well, there are still games to be played in this season’s playoffs, and then at some point it’s time for the 2013 season. I’ve already bought a new team from Impact Miniatures, the Middle Kingdom humans who are done in a classic Greek/Spartan style. I’ll have a lot of fun coming up with a back story for those guys. With all this, I’m happy to report that in our group Blood Bowl is alive and well!

Posted in Blood Bowl | Tagged | Leave a Comment »

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The Undeading

October 9, 2012

We’ve seen zombies associated with a lot of things, but they’re rarely doing good. Here’s an exceptional (in many ways) PSA by the Canadian Heart & Stroke Foundation:

The campaign also features a pretty awesome site at http://www.theundeading.ca/

Posted in News, Zombies | 4 Comments »

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About Otto

October 5, 2012

I think I’ve mentioned my 30th birthday a few times, but I haven’t reported the thing that crowned my party.

When most of the guests had arrived, I was given a short speech, in which it was assumed (correctly) that if there ever was a zombie apocalypse, I had a weapon of choice. I was asked to go get said weapon – a clawhammer – which I did. I was then blindfolded and spun around repeatedly, and the blindfold was removed.

I met Otto, who I proceeded to batter to further death with my hammer, for this here is Otto:

Click for a larger version

Yes, my amazing friends had built me a zombie piñata. After some spirited hammering, I was rewarded with a shower of money, candy and other assorted gifts. I just couldn’t stop laughing, it was insanely awesome.

I promised I’d give due credit to not only those who conceived the idea, but also the actual builders, Satu and Taape, so here are the two artisans (who luckily documented Otto’s creation) in their glory:

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Click for a larger version

Click for a larger version

Click for a larger version

Trivia: Otto was named after the lead character from the staggeringly horrible zombie/gay porn flick Otto, or up with dead people.

As proof of my zombie slaying expertise, here’s Otto in his current state:

Click for a larger version

At the risk of sounding sappy: I love my friends, thanks everyone.

Posted in Zombies | 2 Comments »

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The Walking Dead season 2 – a review

October 3, 2012

My relationship with The Walking Dead in its various forms is not an entirely easy one. When I first started reading the comic (from issue #1) it was pretty much the best thing I’d ever seen. Lately I haven’t read it – it started getting a little tedious as things kept going from bleak to bleaker to even bleaker to mega bleak and then some, and the series just kind of lost a lot of its effectiveness.

I was looking forward to the TV series a lot, and apart from the final episode of season one, I was pretty happy with how it turned out. When season two started, I was…well, if not as thrilled as about season one, still pretty interested. I started watching season two, and it was, in a word, boring. The season didn’t seem to be going anywhere. Around episode five I simply stopped watching. It was a huge disappointment.

My interest in the whole TWD franchise waned, until I ran into the amazing adventure game. All of a sudden I was interested in TWD again. This was further fueled by a friend of mine giving me a TWD book, Rise of the Governor, as a birthday present.

Skip forward a month, to the day before yesterday. I’m on a work trip in Mikkeli, and find myself with a lot of spare time. I visit the nearest (“only”, I’m told) video rental store, and decide to give TWD’s season two a chance. After four paragraphs of rambling, the review begins!

I’m happy I gave the series a second look. As it turns out, after a sloooooow start the season starts picking up pace, and in my opinion ends up being as good as, if not even better, than the first one.

The season has plenty of elements that make it excellent. There’s a large, coherent arc that runs throughout the season. There is some great acting, with Jon Bernthal as Shane standing out especially. Some very heavy themes are dealt with, and there’s a fair amount of unexpected twists and turns to keep the viewer interested. There are character deaths, and these are not dealt with lightly, but are important events. The tone is kept pretty dark and sombre, but there are lighter moments as well. Also, the series doesn’t go down the comic’s route, heaping bad things on bad things and piling some more bad things on, which keeps it much more relatable.

The Walking Dead‘s group dynamics work fairly well. There are interesting schisms, which in turn are often dealt with realistically enough to keep the series believable. Some strange decisions are made, seemingly just to further the plot, but these are in the minority. All in all, TWD manages to put together a group of characters that alternatively both garner sympathy and irritate – much like real people. Even the worst of the bunch have some genuinely likable moments, which is a huge plus in my book. This is helped along by quality actors who do a very good job.

While I’m not much of a gore hound, I must remark on the awesomely disgusting stuff pulled off by the effects crew. This isn’t the kind of stuff you usually see on TV, apart from wildlife documentaries. The zombies in differente states of decay are also wonderfully done, and if you get your hands on the dvd box, I recommend checking out the extras.

Of course, it’s not all perfect. The series does use the whole “Carl disappears and appears inconveniently” over and over again. Note to the writers of The Walking Dead: if your repeating plot device is getting turned into a meme, you’re doing something wrong.

Also, as mentioned before, in the first five or so episodes, nothing much happens. This does pay off handsomely towards the end of the season though, as it allows for much more character development than the six episode season one.

Character development brings me to T-Dog. This character, despite having been with the series since approximately the beginning, hasn’t really received any screen time nor character development. Don’t believe me? io9 noted this too, in their article (with some spoilers) in March. I have absolutely no idea why this is, but it’s a glaring mistake and starts to get pretty funny and noticeable around episode 8 or 9.

Overall verdict: Despite a slow start, The Walking Dead season 2 builds up to some very nice zombie action and drama. While there are some weaker elements – “Where’s Carl?”, T-Dog and the slow start, basically – the whole manages to deliver, often exceeding season one. While I almost lost my faith, it seems TWD is back on track.

You can get The Walking Dead season 2 from any decent dvd retailer. Or a video rental store in Mikkeli, your call.

Posted in Movie reviews, Zombies | Tagged | 4 Comments »

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From the painting desk #18 – A not-purple worm

September 22, 2012

After reviewing the Reaper Bones purple worm I was left with a sloppily washed model sitting on my desk. Since it was already somewhat started, I figured I’d paint it up properly. Not really wanting an actual purple worm, I went for an earthy palette for the colours.

As tends to happen to me, I was very lazy with the mould lines, and they ended up showing a bit too much for my liking. Something I might add to the review: on the soft plastic the mould lines are somewhat difficult to remove. Filing results in a mess, cutting easily takes away to much and scraping works, but not as well as with hard styrene. Of course due to the worm’s round surfaces and textures, mould line removing was more difficult and time consuming than usual.

A question has been raised on the nets about whether the Bones models can be painted without priming. I didn’t prime the model (apart from the wash) but instead started painting with the base colour – in this case GW’s Dryad Bark. The model took the paint without any issues, so I’d say that’s definitely a time and paint saver on the Bones range.

Click for a larger version

It’s a simple paint job, with progressively lighter brown drybrush layers over the Dryad Bark (GW’s Graveyard Earth, VGC’s Khaki, VGC’s Bonewhite and Elfic Flesh) followed by a wash of GW’s Devlan Mud. The teeth were painted individually with the idea of “the more the merrier”. The worm is based on a 50mm round plastic base and the moulded scenic base blends in nicely with my standard sand texture.

All in all, for all its simplicity, I think the finished model looks fine. It was very quick to do, which is nice considering I still have seven more to finish…

Posted in Miniatures | Tagged , | 1 Comment »

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Bones Purple worm by Reaper – a review

September 12, 2012

Reaper Miniatures’ Bones line (the amazing Kickstarter success of which you’ve already probably read about) operates on a simple concept: take some of Reaper’s popular sculpts, have them cast in vinyl – or “bendy plastic” as it’s commonly known – and sell it for a very low price. In this review I take a look at my first Bones miniature – a purple worm.

The purple worm is a pretty iconic D&D monster. There’s something innately appealing and terrifying about a massive worm with a mouthful of big pointy teeth bursting out of the ground to nom on whatever it wishes. Just watch Tremors and you’ll know what I mean.

Reaper’s purple worm, sculpted by Michael Brower, is a pretty impressive model. At its highest point it’s almost 70mm tall, making it tower over regular 28mm minis. The mouth is approximately 20mm in diameter, meaning that the worm actually looks capable of devouring smaller creatures whole. The worm is dynamically posed, as it coils up from the ground. It stands on an integral scenic base – basically a pile of rocks showing the worm burrowing out of the ground. The model is quite sturdy on the integral base.

The prominent questions in my mind about the Bones range were about the material. I was somewhat suspicious about the bendiness, as well as the material’s capability of holding detail. I’m happy to say that in the case of the purple worm, I was positively surprised by both aspects. The bendiness of the material is there, but its effect is minimal due to the size and thickness of the worm. On thinner parts, like weapon hafts and the like, I can imagine the bendiness bothering me, but with the Purple worm it’s not an issue. As for the detail, while there is loss (I haven’t seen the original metal version apart from pictures), there is plenty of detail and texture on the model. It’s not comparable to metal or resin in terms of sharpness, but the overall effect is still good.

Below is a picture of the purple worm straight out of the blister…

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…and after a quick black wash and white drybrush to bring out the detail.

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The huge selling point of the Bones range is the price. Just to illustrate: the metal version of the purple worm (with visibly better detail) is listed on the Reaper website at $27.15. The same plastic model is also available as the pre-painted “great worm” for $6.99. The Bones version retails for $2.99 – a measly 11% of the price of the metal original. While some people will prefer the superior detail and heft of the metal model, that’s a massive price difference (I should know, having ordered eight of the Bones one). For a model of this size, $2.99 is a bargain. This size? Below is a size comparison with an em4 trooper.

EDIT September 19th 2012: It has been pointed out to me by two commenters (see comments below), that there isn’t a lot of difference in the level of detail between the Bones version and the metal version of the worm.

Click for a larger version

Overall verdict: The Bones purple worm is a great example of what the Bones range can deliver. A large model for a very low price, with a reasonable level of detail and minimal bendiness issues. If you’re looking for something like this – a giant killer worm, that is – and don’t want to spend loads and loads of money, then look no further. While it’s not (EDIT Sep 19th 2012: or is it? see my note above) metal or resin when it comes to detail, in this case it’s more than sufficient. The nature of the creature means it can be used in a variety of settings. It could easily be a Lovecraftian beast, something roaming the post-apocalyptic irradiated wasteland, a vicious alien creature on a far off planet, or…well, a purple worm in fantasy gaming.

You can get the purple worm directly from Reaper, or from various retailers. At the time of writing, the model retails for $2.99.

Posted in Miniature reviews, Miniatures | Tagged | 11 Comments »

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From the painting desk #17 – More Colonial Marine specialists

August 30, 2012

It’s a busy time here, with plenty of work. I’ve got a few new projects in the pipeline, and surprisingly this doesn’t even mean I’ve dropped my old ones. The Colonial Marines are still rolling out and they’re slowly moving towards a more generic futuristic army. My latest addition to the force consists of three models from three different manufacturers.

A while back, Paul a.k.a Sho3box commented on how he felt that the Colonial Marines deserved better leadership than that of the inept Lt. Gorman in Aliens.

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Enter this officer from Copplestone Castings. With his simple stance and his hands behind his back, he really looks like he means business. I’m guessing actual combat drops instead of simulated.

Next up is a CM operating a sentry gun. The model is from Woodbine, and I really like the pose, with the trooper sitting on his knees and casually holding his rifle. I painted the laptop’s screen to suggest that it’s being used to control the sentry gun. I like the way his paintjob turned out, and I’m especially happy with the five o’clock shadow I painted on his face. The sentry gun is from the same set, and it’s a very nice piece of hardware as well. It will join my four em4 sentry guns to help my marines dish out loads of automatic, motion tracking death. The laptop’s screen didn’t photograph too well, due to the gloss varnish on the screen.

Click for a larger version

Click for a larger version

Speaking of em4, they produce the third model of this trio. I decided that attaching some form of special forces to the Colonial Marine strength would be fun, so I’m currently painting up these troopers in berets. I settled for a black beret with a silver/steel badge, and in my opinion it looks suitably special force-y. What do you think?

Click for a larger version

A fun batch to paint, all were minis that painted up nicely. I ran into a terrible hitch during spray varnishing, as for some reason – humid weather I guess – my Army Painter matt varnish left the models with a horrible, gritty texture and turned all the blacks grey. After some brooding I went back and did a lot of fixing on the minis. The next run with the same can of spray went without a problem, so despite the setback the minis are finally finished.

As always, comments and critique welcome!

Posted in Miniatures, Sci-Fi | Tagged , , , , | 3 Comments »

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