Secret War Journal[20 October 2012]
It is time to celebrate Qi Xiang's Birthday!
Together with Marcus and Meldon, we had a blast at Mindcafe near Dhouby Ghaut.
We played a match of Settlers of Catan. After that, we went on to play a round of Citadels.
Apart from Qi Xiang, I think the rest of us never played this game before. (At least I know I never played before)
At first look, the game may look a bit complicated due to the presence of 4 different sets of cards, excluding the instructional cards. Of course, on hindsight, it certainly looks a lot less complicated than Settlers of Catan but hey, I was not comparing this board game to any game when I first saw the contents.
Basically, in this game, your goal is to accumulate as much points at the end of the game. The game ends at the end of the round when a player constructed 8 districts.
The more expensive your districts are, the more points it would contribute. Players who constructed 8 districts at the end of the game would receive bonus points and the first player to construct 8 district would receive the most bonus points. Some districts have special abilities.
Perhaps, the key element of the game is the character cards. Each round, you get to choose a class/character where no one else knows until it is revealed later phase of the round. Each character has a special ability which you can use in that round. Some abilities include destruction of a district, extra gold, make a player lose a turn.
The remaining 2 sets of cards are bonus decks which you can opt to replace the original cards in the district and character decks. In my opinion, some of the cards from the bonus decks are quite imbalanced and breaks the game but that's just me. :P
The Present
Before we headed off to the cinema, we side-tracked a bit to a nearby games store.
Mind you, this was all planned beforehand.
Qi Xiang had mentioned about this game for quite some time already. Since he does not yet own this game, we decided it would make quite a decent birthday present for him.
Thus, as we entered the store, we started to talk about the latest games available in various consoles. Meanwhile, Marcus went to purchase the game to present it to Qi Xiang.
Qi Xiang looked a bit shocked when he saw the present. He had an expression which said "I can't believe you guys just bought this for me!". Hahas!
Mission accomplished. Time to watch the movie. :P
In my opinion, it was an insightful movie. Though I won't call it a great movie but it is indeed thought-provoking. Time travel has been a concept that many had imagined. However, many considerations need to be taken when writing a script based on time travel. It is just so easy to create paradox on the fly when you are writing a story with time travel involved.
Looper is one such movie that leads one to feel that the author did not bother to tie up the loose ends in the movie, leaving the paradox unexplained. Of course, it could also be the intention of the author to leave it to the watcher's imagination. Sometimes, explaining the paradox could kill the action in the movie which I would agree in this case since this movie is seriously lacking some thrilling action. Even though I believe it was not meant to be an action movie, but hey, a little more action would not hurt right?
One aspect I really liked about the movie was how the director managed to portray the motivations of various characters in the movie. Despite the lack of screen time for the older Joe, it is not difficult to know the driving force behind his actions. Similarly for Kid Blue, his motivations are also explained in the movie.
Regarding comic relief, I believe one of the best played scene was the anti-climatic scene, much similar to the anti-climatic scene in Iron Man 2. Another well-played act was the conversation between the two Joes in the restaurant.
Comparing to other time travel pieces, I feel that Steins;Gate is still a better option. It could possibly due to the fact that it is not a movie but has many episodes to slowly build up on the time travel concept which gives Steins;Gate ample time to close the loose ends. Steins;Gate allows the audience to get mind-blown as everything makes sense, where everything fits despite the move into the next time line, preventing major paradoxes.
Finally, Looper is a movie that ensures that one would be talking about it after the movie, allowing intellectual discussions on each other's perceptions/understanding of the movie. Each and everyone has different approach to understanding the movie, allowing this movie to be a great topic to converse about in social gatherings. That is where Looper truly shines, I feel.
"I must govern the clock, not be governed by it." - Golda Meir
It is time to celebrate Qi Xiang's Birthday!
Together with Marcus and Meldon, we had a blast at Mindcafe near Dhouby Ghaut.
We played a match of Settlers of Catan. After that, we went on to play a round of Citadels.
Citadels
At first look, the game may look a bit complicated due to the presence of 4 different sets of cards, excluding the instructional cards. Of course, on hindsight, it certainly looks a lot less complicated than Settlers of Catan but hey, I was not comparing this board game to any game when I first saw the contents.
Basically, in this game, your goal is to accumulate as much points at the end of the game. The game ends at the end of the round when a player constructed 8 districts.
The more expensive your districts are, the more points it would contribute. Players who constructed 8 districts at the end of the game would receive bonus points and the first player to construct 8 district would receive the most bonus points. Some districts have special abilities.
Perhaps, the key element of the game is the character cards. Each round, you get to choose a class/character where no one else knows until it is revealed later phase of the round. Each character has a special ability which you can use in that round. Some abilities include destruction of a district, extra gold, make a player lose a turn.
The remaining 2 sets of cards are bonus decks which you can opt to replace the original cards in the district and character decks. In my opinion, some of the cards from the bonus decks are quite imbalanced and breaks the game but that's just me. :P
The PresentBefore we headed off to the cinema, we side-tracked a bit to a nearby games store.
Mind you, this was all planned beforehand.
Qi Xiang had mentioned about this game for quite some time already. Since he does not yet own this game, we decided it would make quite a decent birthday present for him.
Thus, as we entered the store, we started to talk about the latest games available in various consoles. Meanwhile, Marcus went to purchase the game to present it to Qi Xiang.
Qi Xiang looked a bit shocked when he saw the present. He had an expression which said "I can't believe you guys just bought this for me!". Hahas!
Mission accomplished. Time to watch the movie. :P
Looper
In my opinion, it was an insightful movie. Though I won't call it a great movie but it is indeed thought-provoking. Time travel has been a concept that many had imagined. However, many considerations need to be taken when writing a script based on time travel. It is just so easy to create paradox on the fly when you are writing a story with time travel involved.
Looper is one such movie that leads one to feel that the author did not bother to tie up the loose ends in the movie, leaving the paradox unexplained. Of course, it could also be the intention of the author to leave it to the watcher's imagination. Sometimes, explaining the paradox could kill the action in the movie which I would agree in this case since this movie is seriously lacking some thrilling action. Even though I believe it was not meant to be an action movie, but hey, a little more action would not hurt right?
One aspect I really liked about the movie was how the director managed to portray the motivations of various characters in the movie. Despite the lack of screen time for the older Joe, it is not difficult to know the driving force behind his actions. Similarly for Kid Blue, his motivations are also explained in the movie.
Regarding comic relief, I believe one of the best played scene was the anti-climatic scene, much similar to the anti-climatic scene in Iron Man 2. Another well-played act was the conversation between the two Joes in the restaurant.
Finally, Looper is a movie that ensures that one would be talking about it after the movie, allowing intellectual discussions on each other's perceptions/understanding of the movie. Each and everyone has different approach to understanding the movie, allowing this movie to be a great topic to converse about in social gatherings. That is where Looper truly shines, I feel.
"I must govern the clock, not be governed by it." - Golda Meir
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