lathany

Finally I'm on summer leave. It feels very weird. I keep expecting to have to do work things. I have a bunch of bits and pieces to do (home jobs, I mean), but also plenty of time to play computer games and things. I've started The Golden Wake computer game.

Recently, I ran a weekend game. After a certain amount of preparation, I realised that it was going to be Warhammer 3K. It was set in the present day and involved a man who was looking to achieve immortality and who was taking talent from individuals he killed. The setting was a wedding at a large estate in Wales and was a game for which I risked background music with vocals (the Tomb Raider film soundtrack and The Fall). The music worked well whilst the game received a very mixed reception. It finished abruptly when the players (

bateleur,

chrestomancy,

chrisvenus,

ao_lai and

quisalan) very publicly took issue with the Big Bad. As a consequence he got away, but they stopped the killing. I've had a player praise it for not following the usual "glorious ending" approach but also this meant it ended early and I had to explain quite a lot. The Emperor was in it briefly as a bystander.

I've also run some more standard Warhammer 40K (Atlanor Group). The second group left Itazen and tried to track down the motivations and sources of its corrupt former governor. They've uncovered some dodgy trading accounts and seen some Warp-infested tombs. They've also seen a dead Tyranid (which they hope is unrelated).

Filmwise we've seen our two July films.

Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit - The title character was played by the new Captain Kirk (Chris Pine) and the cast included Keira Knightley, Kevin Costner and Kenneth Branagh (who also directed). It should have been awesome. Instead it was OK and watchable. I think its problem was that it was a bit too much spy thriller by-the-numbers.
The two faces of January - This one had overtones of The Talented Mr Ripley. it's a rather good three-person drama set in Greece in the sixties and starring Viggo Mortensen (Aragorn!), Kirsten Dunst and Oscar Isaac. It works around issues of trust and scamming and VM was particularly good. That said, it wasn't nearly as wonderful as TTMR and only a reasonably-good film overall.

On computer games,

bateleur and I have been playing The Talos Principle. It's a well-designed puzzle game where you play an android solving puzzles involving lasers, blocks and things alongside a story-line exploring what it means to be human. Thoroughly recommended if you like puzzle games although we weren't fond of the timing-critical bits (and the time-limited bit at the end).

Finally, I went to see Bea's Peter Pan. She played the narrator and was rather good - helped by being a character with a working microphone. The rest of the cast were mixed, but I was glad I'd seen it overall.