Dr. No

You can just imagine the music

Almost Christmas as of writing and during the Black Friday-week I had to get my own presents like last year, but where it took till after Christmas to get delivered I got a James Bond blu ray box since I didn't have those movies and I seen clips on facebook that got me in the espionage mood. Well, I got one film, Die Another Day... but that ones not that good. So started watching from beginning to end and of course you start with Dr No... or as it was known in Sweden Agent 007 with License to Kill (this will be problem for the Swedish translation team until the 90's).

An undercover agent Strangeway disappears in Jamaica together with his secretary so 007 is sent in to find them. Both have been killed by Dr No who operates from an island nearby in order to capture one of the Americans rockets firing from Cape Canaveral in the space race between east and west. Dr No works for the criminal crime syndicate SPECTRA. Bond meets the CIA operative Felix Leiter and local fisherman Quarrel that helped Strangeway in searching the island, finding samples of radioactive material on Dr No:s island that got Strangeway killed when he handed over them to the local Professor Dent who works for Dr No. After Dent tries to kill 007 with a poisonous spider he meets his doom as Bond guns him down after yet another failed  assassination attempt. On Dr. No's island 007 meets Honey Rider... a random girl that looks for sea shells and helps 007 and Quarrel through the swamp... until they are cornered by the "Dragon" that kills Quarrel and takes the other to Dr No's facility where they finally meet the much talked about Dr No. All that's left is that 007 blows up the nuclear reactor that powers the facility, push Dr No into the vat of cooling water and escapes with Honey Rider and then is picked up by Felix Leiter that arrives with a ship of coastal guards.

Not much to say about this first proper James Bond-movie. Music is great, but it does most of the heavy lifting to excite the action scenes. I mean, you can't take the spider scene seriously as it crawls on the glass window. The plot works fine. My parents complained some year ago that they felt the older Bond-movies didn't work for them due to the slow tempo and all that... I can see some people feel that, but at least I can follow the plot and action. What is problematic is that it probably expects people to know what happens around in history of the time they made the movies. One throw-away gag is that Dr No has a stolen Goya painting of Napoleon that was stolen for real around filming and they just added that for that scene, but they don't comment on what it is and it's never referenced in the movie. I didn't get that until I watched the documentary on the making of that movie that came with the blu ray. Blu ray is good, but menu is a bit weird at times, but it contains a couple of documentaries, description on major players in the movie and pictures of memorabilia around release and such. What I miss most is that I miss the posters of the movies on the package. It's just 3 cases in a box and they all are white.

Didn't watch this one that much as a kid, was kinda boring since there wasn't any gadgets or such and we only had it recorded on a VHS. We had the book, but I never read it.

Shantae and the Seven Sirens (Switch)

 

Where entry is by seaweed gate
And plan the plan of dreams

The latest game in the Shantae-series. 5th game in the series. Feeling they had it for a while Shantae and friends go on a vacation where Shantae is invited to join in the half-genie festival... where the other half-genies gets kidnapped, so Shantae has to travel across the island and its sunken city to rescue them from the seven sirens. That ends that vacation. 

Standard Shantae fair, find dungeons, get upgrades, save half-genie and defeat boss, get items to get another upgrade repeat ad nauseam and in-between get heart squids to pummel to new heart containers and new for the game is collecting monster cards that will give you bonuses if you equip them. Reminds me a bit of the card system from Castlevania: Circle of the Moon. In every dungeon you fight Risky Boots as a mini-boss before rescuing the half-genie that give you the dungeon upgrade and Squid Baron shows up in places. Small references here and there.

It has its moments. Turns out that the sunken city is actually a sunken ship (I suspect alien since when you open it up it contains enemies with crab and fish design which together with the sirens seems akin to some Lovecraftian monsters from the stars) and Risky is behind the kidnapping with a faustian bargain with the Sirens to get the ship and the Sirens to be released from their imprisonment by a genie back in time. Of course Shantae saves the day since Risky built in some failsafes if the Sirens would backstab her together with one of the Sirens helping Shantae. 

Played it twice, the second time on New Game+ with the magic mode. First time took 9-10 hours and the second time just beyond 7 hours (and 100 % at that). New Game+ was more fun with the fact I could use dances and weapons much more, but the game overall felt rather small. Just 6 dungeons total and maybe that's the problem, missing a 7th dungeon and battle with a Siren, since the game title promised me that. Agree with SomecallmeJohnny that waiting for a price drop might be justified (which I did this time).

Pikmin 3 Deluxe (Switch)

Love the colours!

Another remaster or port from the Wii U to the Switch. Been 6 years since last time. Did similar numbers this time. Played for 15 hours on the main game got all fruit and played it all on hard mode... whatever that entailed. Still fun, but only lasts a weekend when you know what you're doing. Same story as before. Three explorers from a planet ravaged by starvation is sent out to find food and crash lands on the world of Pikmins. How they were able to travel across space without being able to have a working agriculture program beats me, but of they go. 

While trying to regroup they find evidence of Olimar and Louie and sets of to rescue Olimar that have been kidnapped by some monster. Which I did in around day 36 this time. They also added some side missions with Olimar and Louie. First set right before the main game begins and how Olimar found the cosmic drive key and got attacked by the monster. The second set follows the story after he was rescued and how they gotta get the parts for their spaceship back on order from the company president.

That pretty much it. I gathered some people thought it wasn't enough to justify it's full price and I can see that. Still enjoyed it, but would have liked some sort of pack with all three games. I think they added something to the controls like auto-targeting since I can't recall that... but it's been 6 years so who knows.

A DnD Tale: Curse of Stradh - The Amber Temple 3

 

Best enemy of the game according to the dungeon master

Still in the Amber Temple. Not much left so they continue on from the treasure room and pass a crevice to find yet another room with three sarcophagus and six crates. Opening up them they find 6 dead bodies and as they prepares to leave they awaken and attack them The vampire spawns gives them some challange for the first time since Death house and the attacking broom stick. And they are scary since they are able to grapple a couple of them (mostly due to us not knowing the rules) that allows them to use a bite attack that both drains their HP, necrotic damage that lowers their max HP and also regain the vampire spawns HP. The monk is unconscious after getting bit and being surrounded by three of them. Eventually the battle turns around as they dispatch the spawns one by one. Took us 2 hours real time.

After resting up and getting more level 3 spell slots for dispel magic they decide that there is only 3 magic doors locked on the ground floor so better clean them out. And the first two is nothing special. One just an empty tomb that been plundered years ago and the other three more sarcophagus. The third room is where the fun is. The monk goes in and is attacked by an invisible Death Slaad that have advantage and get a critical dealing 35 points of damage and with the next attack putting the monk unconscious again. The third attack lands on the sorceress that opened the door. The others hammer away at it, but having 170 HP total it at least lives to the next round where he blasts them with a fireball, hitting another 35 points of damage throwing the sorceress to the ground and the Paladin standing wih 5 HP and the barbarian being bloodied. Only the tiefling thief have  been able to dodge and use all her tricks to lessen the impact. Scrambling to kill it before they are TPK they hit it, but the slaad survives yet another round, leaving me with a hard choice. Either use another fireball, taking the paladin away and maybe the barbarian out, but if the barbarian stand, he's dead. Or use a Plane Shift spell and get him out of the game for good... high risk and high reward so of course use Plane Shift. It fails, so the next turn for the barbarian ends the Slaad's life. 

Getting close to death twice in the same game. I think that upped the risk for them, they have had a nice ride so far with me bumbling the boss encounters, but now they hit back hard. They healed up with all the hit dice they had and continued. Went up to the library through the stairs behind the crevice, found a way back to the ground floor and started combing the temple for anything they missed, especially the control mechanism for the shield guardian. They discovered a secret door leading down to another sarcophagus room, but being filled with ghasts. The sorceress used a fire ball, dealing 50 points of damage to all 7 of them, killing them instantly. They hit the level up mark and game slowed down to get adjusted to level 7. Finally, a level 4th spell for the sorceress, might just use it for Banishment, looks like a cool spell.

Continuing searching for the control medallion they finally get that the mage apprentice might have it, so while the monk distracts him by talking the rouge pickpockets him and get away with the medallion. Unfortunatly for them the apprentice mage's familiar Quisit appears and attacks the rouge. The mage instantly throws a cone of cold on the rest of the party, but the sorceress get to use the Banishment spell, sending him away. Sadly the wild surge instills fear in her and makes her lose concentration so he comes back right away. Still... he gets trounced pretty fast and they get the medallion. Time to pack up all treasure and get back to civilisation... and then the question arises, what were we doing here anyway? Oops!