Game review: Civilization VI

Now it is here, Civilization VI! Okay, it's been out for a while, and I didn't get to make the first impression review, but let's make a proper one then.

Civilization VI is sixth part of the turn-based strategy game series Civilization. It is developed by Firaxis Games and published by 2K Games.

I played few games, and I have to say, I'm a bit disappointed. After only three games, I was starting to get bored with this game. There are some good changes made to it, and it seems more complex, at least when comparing to Civ V, but something just seems to be missing.

Pros:
- The science-kind of Civic-tree is nice, where you use culture to "research" causes, which give you these cards, that have different kinds of bonuses and perks. The new government system connected to this, in which you get to choose your government from classical republic to fascism and communism, is a neat feature.

- Districts. These are a new feature, that instead of building every building inside your city center, you choose a tile where you build a certain district, like campus or market. This is good, because it makes the cities look more realistic and good-looking. It gives the cities the feeling, that a city in reality is more than just the city center. It's also about it's surrounding towns and suburbs.

- Graphics style is a bit two-bladed sword: other like it, others don't. I like the new fog of war, where instead of the usual fog or clouds, the map actually looks like an old map. Otherwise, though, I don't like the graphics that much, the cartoony style doesn't just fit, especially the leaders, and the actual map is kind of bland: all civs look alike and the units look all the same. Diversity is missing here.

Cons:
- Pretty much everything else. The game still feels like the old Civilization V with some good features taken out. There's no diplomatic victory, no UN, no World Congress. Cultural victory is laughably easy. City-States don't seem to matter at all. After 200 turns there just doesn't seem to be anything left to do, other than press for next turn, and hope you have done the required things for your favored victory, as in the end, it's just about turns, and who started doing it first.

- Barbarians are made more aggressive and hard, and in most cases, too much. At only 10 turns the barbarians are already attacking with horsemen against your warriors and slingshots. And new barbarians seem to spawn almost like every turn. The first minutes of the game is just about fighting the barbarians and you have to focus your science and civics to military, just to get by. And sometimes the computer players are stupid enough to lose to barbarians right at the start of the game.

- Which leads to the stupid AI. They have no logic and seem to be denouncing you all the time with no apparent reason. In one game, I had good relations with one city-state. Then, a random player started a war against it, then suddenly all the other computer players denounced me for being a warmongerer - I mean, seriously?

Only good things about the AI is trading: you can actually haggle and try different deals, and get somewhere with it, unlike in Civ5. But that's about it. Talk about the civs' agendas, the Norway seems to hate me all the time, just because I can't be bothered to build few ships, and Cleopatra hate me because I have a weaker army (even though sometimes I have even greater than hers). And Peter of Russia seems to first wonder why I have no science and arts, but the next time he idolizes how much I have science and arts, and this goes back and forth the whole game. I just don't get how they coded any of these lines.

In short: I think the game feels incomplete and rushed. They just added some cool things and took out other, without ever properly testing the game. Everything sound and seems great and cool at first, but nothing really works actually. Like the warring penalties, that if you suddenly out of no reason start a war, you get penalties, and when you get things that justify a war (like finding a spy), they don't work of affect in any way.

I rate this 3/5: if you're a true Civ-fanatic, or otherwise love TBS games very much, give it a try once it's on sale. In any other case, I'd recommend to pass on this one.

Movie review: 10 Cloverfield Lane

First I just want to say, don't believe the low ratings, like in IMDb, because people just voted zero, when it turned out this is not Cloverfield 2, a scifi movie from 2008. 10 Cloverfield Lane is nothing like it, and it's a good thing it isn't.

10 Cloverfield Lane is (like Cloverfield) produced by J. J. Abrams and directed by Dan Trachtenberg. In the main roles we see John Goodman, who's pretty sure a familiar face to many, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, which I recognized from Die Hards as Lucy, and a bit less known John Gallagher Jr.

The movie tells about the triple's survival in the doomsday prepper's bunker, but that's pretty much all I want to say about the story. The whole movie is based on that you know nothing about it before-hand. It can seem a bit of a gamble, but trust me on this one - it won't let you down.

The movie is simply brilliant. I like the direction and the shaky hand-held camera of Cloverfield is replaced with tripod scenes, which is good. The use of the camera is amazing, and is one the main elements with which they achieved the claustrophobic and exciting atmosphere of the movie.

The story is very thrilling and I watched most of the movie not even leaning back, almost literally hanging on the edge of my seat. The story is very unpredictable and to the last minute you are going to rethink whether you are right, or not. The characters are done and portrayed so well, you change your own opinion back and forth all the time.

The acting is also great, especially John Goodman does an awesome job as the doomsday prepper and the character is very interesting. Mary Winstead's character is also good, but mostly I liked the actress' job, as it was surprisingly good.

I don't really find that much to complain about, and this is one those movies, that when coming closer to the end, you just think to yourself "no, don't end ever." It's exciting, with few even scary scenes, and just simply amazing movie to watch. Even though like 80% of the setting is in underground bunker, it doesn't stop or slow down even for once. The pacing is just a notch on, perfect.

I rate it 4,5/5 - simply because I don't want to raise it among the "best movies in the world". Though it was great, you can always improved that one bit more. But, I assure this won't be a disappointment, just as long as you don't go in expecting a Cloverfield-like alien movie with constant explosions and special effects, because this one ain't like that.

Movie review: The Infiltrator

I decided to do a review here, before the Civilization after all. First, I just want to say, that I usually hate that, when half of the review is just retelling what happened in the movie, so here, my reviews will always be spoiler-free and I won't ramble about the story no more, than what you could find out from the back cover.

*          *          *

The movie is The Infiltrator. It is directed by Brad Furman (The Lincoln Lawyer) and written my his writer-mom, Ellen Brown Furman. The movies is based on Rober Mazur's autobiography of the time when he was working as an undercover in the 80's. Mazur played as a corrupt businessman that infiltrated the Pablo Escobar's money laundering organization. On the main roles we see the great Bryan Cranston, probably most well known from the TV series Breaking Bad, and Diane Kruger, who plays Mazur's undercover partner. You'll know her most likely from Inglourious Basterds and National Treasure.

The strongest aspect of the movie definitely is the acting. Cranston does amazing job here with all his micro expressions, which makes his acting very real and live-like. The character development is good and you do really grow onto the characters, caring for them, which makes the intense and exciting scenes more so - you don't want them to get caught.

The true crime story genre has is a difficulties: the makers have to balance between believable, but maybe boring and dramatized, but not-so-believable, and I think they took one step to the wrong direction here. It can be a bit boring at few times and I missed some more drama and exciting moments. Do we really want to see what actually happened? Not always. I think documentary is for that, a movie should be a bit dramatized.

From here we get to the worse parts of the movie: I think it was slightly too long, I one time had the thought: "hmm, how long is this gonna last again", which is in my book, not really a good thing. The pacing seemed also a bit off sometimes, as it seemed to jump from events to other and following the movie, at least at the start, was a bit difficult, if you didn't focus on it all the time. New characters were introduced pretty quick, and you were left wondering, who is this guy? What does he do? What does it matter to the story? It did, however, get better till the end.

In short: it's a good movie. If you like true story based undercover crime movies, this is a good one to check out. It was intense and exciting enough at moments, though could have been more of that at some scenes. Just don't expect an action movie, but a movie about characters, especially Cranston's one, in which we get to see how he grows and changes as a person, when he needs to live in the grim business world of drugs.

I'll give it 3,5 out of 5. In it's genre, there are better options, so that's why I didn't want to raise it onto the same level with them. If you like precisely the true story based undercover criminal movie type, this is worth checking out, but if the genre is a bit off, I guess you will see some flaws in it.

The half star comes, because I don't want to drop it among the mediocre mass production stuff either. It has flaws, but is still solid and watchable, if you like the style.

Welcome!

You probably didn't get to read the first texts I had written here, but it doesn't really matter. I tried to do like a traditional blog, but I figured out it just wasn't my thing. I decided to go towards a bit different direction:

I planned to do something I know how to: criticize. Sure, one just can't start running down someone else's work, but I've had my share of experience from evaluating for fun. I though, why not dig into this a bit deeper.

I was hoping to make reviews of all kinds: movies, games, music and what else. Most likely my interests will go mostly towards the first two, but hopefully I'll get some music album and book reviews too.

Next week I will probably start with Civilization VI in form of first impressions, as in I'll pretty much just walk through my first feelings. After a 50 hours, or so, of time played, I'll make sure to do a full review.

Cheers and thanks for now, be back next week!