TWILIGHT SWORD UPDATE: Not Long Now

A quick update from Italian game publishers Two Little Mice this week: its video game/anime-inspired fantasy roleplaying game Twilight Sword will be in backers' hands very, very soon.

The publisher stated that the game materials have now reached its distribution hubs around the world and shipping to customers will begin next week.

The update, shared with backers of its crowdfunding campaign to finance the highly-anticipated game, states:

"We still expect all packages to arrive in your hands within the first half of October!"

The Hobbit - The Desolation Of Smaug (2013)

One of the main things to take away from The Hobbit: The Desolation Of Smaug is that it is infinitely better than its predecessor (An Unexpected Journey).

While, at two-and-a-half hours, it still feels padded, it also doesn't feel as though you are just enduring it in the hope that the next part of the trilogy is better.

Gone is the juvenilia of An Unexpected Journey (no naff musical numbers or English-speaking trolls) to be replaced with a more consistent tone of all-out action. This feels like it's part of the Lord Of The Rings universe.

Of course, it does suffer the curse of the "middle film" - as most trilogies do - in that it starts in media res and ends the same, not with a resolution but a powerful cliffhanger that should guarantee your return for the final movie.

For a large part of The Desolation Of Smaug, the story is split between the dwarves' continuing mission to reach and reclaim Erebor and Gandalf's investigations into the machinations of the mysterious Necromancer of Dol Guldur.

But both segments move the main plot forward and are equally engaging, visually and mentally.

Two major action locations stick in my mind: the most alien-like encounter with the spiders of Mirkwood (which leads to the dwarves capture by the wood elves) and the climactic confrontation with Smaug (voiced by Benedict Cumberbatch, who also lends his vocal chords to the Necromancer).

I had feared that the dwarves escape from the wood elves would turn into a proof of concept promotional video for a barrel ride attraction at the future Hobbit World theme park, but the sequence is nicely broken up with other distractions.

The padding comes in with the added elements, like the bizarrely unnecessary 'love triangle' involving Legolas (Orlando Bloom), Tauriel (Evangeline Lilly) and Kili (Aidan Turner), one of Thorin's band of hardy adventurers.

Even Laketown, which is wonderfully atmospheric in appearance, comes across slightly Discworld-y in the presentation of its internal politics and generally paranoia, as encapsulated in the central performance of the Master of Laketown (Stephen Fry) who acts as though he stepped out of a Terry Pratchett novel or Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast.

His toady assistant. Alfrid (Ryan Gage) is sadly little more than a less-than-successful recycling of Grima Wormtongue.

However, for all its weak points, The Desolation Of Smaug is worthy of repeated viewings - although possibly not as regularly as The Lord Of The Rings - even if only to marvel at the wonderful array of monsters on show.

Arachnophobes Beware! Crawlers Is Not For You!

If spiders decide to eat humans... we'll all be dead in 1 year.

Crawlers is a wild and terrifying thrill ride from the makers of the John Wick franchise. An apartment block in Los Angeles is plunged into lockdown after a catastrophic infestation of venomous and deadly arachnids is triggered by a resident unwittingly harbouring an evil new breed. 

As the fanged creatures multiply by the second, it's up to building manager Serena (Matilda Lutz) to guide a band of misfit neighbours through wall-to-wall dread and do battle with the web-spinning colony as well as the fearful authorities trying to contain the eight-legged plague.

Starring Matilda Lutz (Red Sonja), Gregg Sulkin (Marvel's Runaways), Melina Matthews (Sanctuary), William Miller (Warrior Nun), Elena Sanz (Black Mirror), Chris Rogers (The Running Man) and Andrea Scott Méndez (The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon).

Crawlers is written by Jayson Rothwell (Polar) and directed by Angel Gomez Hernandez (El hombre del saco).

While this won't be one for Rachel, I'm loving Crawlers already. It reminds me of those delightfully trashy "when creatures attack" paperbacks of my youth (in the 1970s) that scandalised my school and led to them being "banned"... which only made us want to read them even more.

EPISODE NEIN: Jeek and Ye Shall Find

PREVIOUSLY ON OUTGUNNED ADVENTURES: Trapped on a dinosaur-infested desert island in the Hollow Earth (possibly), our heroes engage a squad of Nazi soldiers and scientists, fresh off their U-boat transport, in order to steal (or trash) their "weather control" device.

Dick (Kevin's ex-G-man-turned-private eye) and Freya (Clare's photojournalist) casually questioned the two captured scientists, Mikel and his assistant Hans. After initial resistance, Mikel decided he owed no loyalty to his now-deceased paymasters and sang like a canary.

Admitting he had no idea how the U-boat had ended up in "the hollow earth", he explained that they had been sailing into the Atlantic to test the weather control device, with the plan to eventually disrupt shipping lanes. However, before they even got to test it there was a violent disruption in the sea and they arrived here.

Mikel believed everyone had debarked from the U-boat, except possibly a few engineers, and he also said he had no idea where the map had come from or why it was written in English.

Studying the gorgeous, detailed map, we all realised that we had no idea where we were on it, so as pretty as it was, for the moment it was useless.

The map*

Pete got a giant-sized copy of the map printed for us to fawn over and study

Rather than sitting around waiting to become velociraptor chow, we headed off in the jungle, following the stone path/road that the blue-skinned natives had disappeared down in pursuit of stray Nazis.

Buck (my explorer) took point, followed by Dick, the two scientists (with bound wrists) and Freya bringing up the rear.

Freya pointed out that the road design resembled that of ancient structures seen in South America, rather than the more classical Roman designs of Europe.

We cautiously followed the road for an hour before suddenly ahead of us an enormous feline creature crossed the track ahead of us in the shadow of the overhanging branches. 

Approaching the site, we found it had left a large paw print, about lion-sized, in the mud.

Now even more alert, but getting a bit tired and hungry, we continued until the road curved to the left and Freya heard human voices, conversing in a language she couldn't fully understand. 

While Dick stayed back with the prisoners, Freya and I advanced around the corner to discover a village of Asian design, built around an old crossroads, populated by people who appeared to be from both South America and the First Nations.

The village

Cautious, but friendly, they approached us and Freya - our linguist - was able to explain who we were.

We learned that the village was concerned for a missing young girl, Jeek, and we agreed to help her brothers, Hom and Ket, track her down.

Dick was introduced to the tribe and Freya clarified that Mikel and Hans were members of a "hostile tribe" and our "prisoners of war". They were put in the care of two sturdy matrons and, after a hearty meal, the rest of us headed off towards the ruins that Hom and Ket believed Jeek had been heading towards.

Following a gentle slope, and passing through a sudden monsoon, the entrance to the ruins was easily found, but Hom and Ket refused to go further into the crumbling, overgrown structures because of something they referred to as "the guardian".

Foot prints that could only have belonged to Jeek were spotted, but then - as other prints crossed her path - it became clear that she had started to run and eventually we lost her trail.

Advancing towards what was left of the old buildings, mostly reclaimed by the jungle, we all realised that through the main arch there were strange lights, the sounds of machinery and the faint smell of engine oil.

Entrance to the ruins

Before we could even make it to the archway, we stumbled across a family of enormous land crabs. The The trio of baby crabs scuttled away but mummy and daddy crab weren't so easily intimidated and violently defended their offspring.

Working as a unit**, we managed to - eventually - kill both of these armoured behemoths, and then made our way into the roofless ruins. 

There we discovered the source of the lights was some kind of mystical energy field over one of the main buildings, which is where Freya spotted the ancient, dried-up trail of what might possibly have been a giant slug.

TO BE CONTINUED...

* The map, and illustrations, and adventure come from a new game called Terra Incognita (a Hollow Earth/pulp game using the 5e Dungeons & Dragons mechanics), which Pete has been investing in. 

** For anyone who's kept up with my game-related waffles of late, it should be clear that I'm not a massive fan of dice pool systems and have found OUTGUNNED Adventures, for a game that presents itself as pulpy and rules-lite, to actually be surprisingly crunchy.

However, this month, Pete introduced us to some new talents that allowed our characters to work better with each other. For instance, if Clare failed a roll, she could pass dice on to another player (in our case, Kevin) while I could receive a bonus to my rolls if I saw another member of the group succeed (again, in our case, Kevin) .

Thus, our combats (although these rules can be applied to all skill checks, not just combat) became much more regimented and disciplined as we were all helping each other towards our joint goals.

CAST:

• Buck Hannigan - Me
• Freya Larson - Clare
• Dick Tate - Kevin
• Onyx Jones - NPC

DIRECTOR:

• Pete

Buck & Dick (top) and Onyx & Freya (bottom)

If you want to keep abreast of the action in our current season of Pete's Weird Science campaign (currently using the OUTGUNNED ADVENTURES system from Two Little Mice)
then visit this page to find links to all our previous episodes.

The Hobbit - An Unexpected Journey (2012)

Although I now class Peter Jackson's Lord Of The Rings as one of my favourite movies, I wasn't overly impressed when I first saw The Fellowship Of The Ring at the cinema. There were too many long shots of people in fancy dress walking through fields and the narrative didn't flow that well. It was only when I saw the extended, director's cut on DVD that I began to appreciate the majesty of Jackson's ambitious enterprise.

So, I suppose there's every possibility that one day I will come to love to An Unexpected Journey. But I can't see it being any time soon.

One of the major problems I have with it (beyond being way too long) is it is simply isn't The Lord Of The Rings. Although there are moments of brilliance in this first, 169-minute segment of The Hobbit, it lurches from broad comedy to grim dourness with very clumsy footing.

It also becomes very clear that the source material is a book aimed squarely at very young children, with its alliteratively-named dwarvish troupe of adventurers, anachronistic sporting references and trolls named Burt and Tom.

On one hand we have the orc war-band speaking in sub-titles, then we have the trolls and goblins speaking English.

There's no sense that this is a real world, something which the original three movies achieved effortlessly.

There are scenes - such as the gathering of big-wigs at Rivendell - that feel wholly enmeshed in this world we have grown to love, but then there's the stupidly-named trolls (one also uses a handkerchief) and other moments of juvenilia, that I know are from Tolkien's book, but still don't tally with the flawless verisimilitude of Middle-Earth from Lord Of The Rings.

The rabbit-drawn sled I can let slide (I have a soft spot for rabbits), but the preposterous stone giants: why, just why?

Although there's some meaty exposition up-front, the film starts really slowly with the dwarves arrival at Bag End and the whole set-up for the plot (could have done without the "That's What Bilbo Baggins Hates" song that came dangerously close to tipping this piece over into high camp).

Then even once the adventurers get going there's a diversion for the audience to visit the nature wizard Radagast The Brown (Sylvester McCoy) which, while visually interesting, takes about quarter-of-an-hour to show us something that Gandalf tells Elrond et al in a couple of lines.

And so it goes on, in fits and starts.

Just as you think the pace is picking up, something will pop up to slow things back down again and the plot doesn't really get flowing until the final act - namely Bilbo (Martin Freeman) playing the 'riddle game' with Gollum (Andy Serkis); the dwarves escape from goblin town (which in a sense is just a replay of the Fellowship escaping Moria, but with wooden bridges replacing stone); then the fight with the orcs; and finally the arrival of the eagles (which is handled very well, as it isn't explained because we know exactly what to expect when we see Gandalf talking to the moth he has captured).

Do have to wonder though why the eagles couldn't carry our heroes a bit closer to their final destination?

There are also odd moments where - given that technology has presumably moved on quite a bit since the Rings films - some of the special effects jarred; there's some quite noticeable green-screening which is always a good way to kick you out of the moment. Is this a side effect of Jackson's use of a higher frame-rate to shoot the movie?

While the director's cuts of all three parts of Lord Of The Rings are long, they flow gorgeously and never feel like a chore, but the two hours 42 minutes (plus about seven minutes of credits) of An Unexpected Journey really felt like a marathon.

It was certainly rewarding once we crossed the finish line, and the final shot of Smaug waking up was worth its weight in gold - but then you have to realise we're only a third of the way.

Perhaps the narrative will flow better when we can watch all three pictures back-to-back and see the full vision that Jackson is bringing to this tale.

There's clearly been a lot of backstory added (from Tolkien's other work) to build up the story of the Necromancer and create a bridge to The Lord Of The Rings and I can't help wishing that more emphasis had been put on this and a scalpel had been taken to the actual story of The Hobbit to strip it back to its core elements.

So It's Thursday The 12th?

The legend begins at Camp Crystal Lake.

Crystal Lake, starring Linda Cardellini, premieres on Sky (Peacock in the States) this October.

A prequel to the Friday the 13th franchise, the series follows single mother Pam Voorhees who has been unable to shake her grief after her young, sickly son Jason tragically drowned in the town lake almost a year before.

When two strangers arrive at Pam’s door digging into her past, a disturbing chain of events are set into motion, leaving the townspeople of Crystal Lake wondering: just who is Pam Voorhees?

Okay, I have to confess, after my initial snarkiness, this trailer makes Crystal Lake look pretty intriguing; I just don't want another Bates Motel.

The Throne of Fire (1983)

The witch Azira (Beno Cardoso) is ravished by the Devil's Messenger, the demon Belial (Harrison Muller), who proclaims that their progeny will take his rightful seat on the titular Throne of Fire and "rule the world".

The monstrous child grows up to become the warlord Morak (also Harrison Muller), who, thanks to a vague prophecy about "The Day of The Night in the Day" (catchy way to say 'eclipse', eh?), must marry Princess Valkari (Sabrina Siani, who you may recognise from Sword of The Barbarians, Conquest or Ator: The Fighting Eagle) the daughter of the slain king Aegon 

Only by legitimising his claim to the throne can Morak sit on the magical throne, which immediately immolates any pretenders who dare park their bum on its shiny goodness.

Enter Siegfried (Peter McCoy aka Pietro Torrisi), son of Aegon's friendly wizard, Isar (Isarco Ravaioli), who is destined to thwart Morak's plans - as he believes his father was slain in the same ambush that claimed the royal family (and which Valkari managed to slip away from).

Unfortunately, while Siegfried may have the strength (STR 14 or 15) and agility (DEX 16+ easily) for the hero lark, he's not the sharpest tool in the box (INT 7 or 8, tops), and makes a string of unfortunate or ill-considered decisions throughout the 89-minute movie (from his initial plan to just walk into Morak's throne room to. later, accidentally leading Morak's troops to Valkari's secret hiding place).

It's really the kickass princess who does most of the heavy-lifting in the hero department, seemingly being just as competent - if not more so - with a sword as Siegfried, but also engineering her own escape from Morak's clutches (leaving the imprisoned Siegfried to his own devices).

Morak, it must be said, doesn't help himself either, only remembering in the final act that he has hypnotic powers capable of mind-controlling the princess which, had he used them earlier, would have saved him a lot of bother.

On the other hand, he has acid for blood - which is cool. But, sadly, we only see this come into play once (when Siegfried runs him through... and the sword melts).

Although rather meandering in places, The Throne of Fire is a pretty decent sword-and-sorcery peplum, with a pleasingly strong female lead (although there's some bizarrely random snogging in places, which is odd given that she has only just met Siegfried) who manages to hold her own, in the style of Red Sonja.

The pedestrian plot of this '80s Italian swordsploitation flick is a bit jumbled and hackneyed, and riddled with holes, but some of that may be down to the English translation in the dubbed version I watched on DVD.

For instance, for all the early talk of "ruling the world", it quickly becomes clear that the Throne of Fire only grants sovereignty of this single fantasy realm. It's not exactly the battle for The Iron Throne!

Morak's troops - the ones dressed in the sweet black armour and helmets - may, actually be demons of some kind, but this is only fleetingly hinted at when Siegfried removes one's helmet, and it's never alluded to again.

There's no escaping the fact that director Franco Prosperi's The Throne of Fire looks cheap.

Footage is clearly recycled from other films, you can see the joins in the walls of Morak's castle courtyard, and the special effects aren't that special.

But the plucky Sabrina Siani pretty much carries the whole film on her shoulders, giving us an interesting female protagonist, who largely gets repeatedly captured because of the uselessness of her "saviour" Siegfried.

There's also several welcome moments of levity in the film, some unintentional and usually involving Siegfried, but the bumbling priest conducting the marriage of Morak and Valkari just has to have been deliberate.

And the risible attempts to execute Siegfried (something that, honestly, should have been very straight forward if they'd only, oh I don't know, strapped him down) at the climax of the movie simply beggar belief.

MUSICAL MONDAY: Faster (Manic Street Preachers)

My favourite Manics song from my favourite Manics album, The Holy Bible.

An official live-recording of this seminal album, along with a Blu-Ray of the concert performance, is being released in late October.

In 2014, to mark 20-years since the release of their landmark album The Holy Bible, Manic Street Preachers embarked on a sold-out tour playing the record in full. 

More than a decade later, The Holy Bible Live captures an unforgettable show at London’s Roundhouse, documenting a band revisiting a defining chapter of their history... this format includes the incredible full live show on CD, a Director's Cut of Kieran Evans' acclaimed live film Be Pure – Be Vigilant – Behave on Blu-Ray.

READING REPORT: Back On Track... Hopefully!

Two bits of great news on the reading front this week: I've finally resumed Draugr after too long a break and my copy of the Deathstalker novelisation has arrived, shipped all the way from the U.S. of A.

I can't believed I put Draugr aside in the middle of such a tense sequence, and now I'm back in the deep, dark, scary forest I'm pleased to report the book is still incredibly atmospheric and creepy.

With Deathstalker turning up there's been yet more jiggery-pokery with my "to be read" list, meaning that this movie adaptation is now the next thing I intend to read, once I wrap up Draugr, 

While all this excitement was going on, I did get another of my fortnightly comic book shipments up from Paradox Comics in Poole, which means another nine comics to also slip in the "immediate" reading pile.

This week's comics

As long as I can be disciplined about it, I'm hopeful that I can somehow alternate between Draugr and the comics, rather than putting the novel aside again to make way for comic books.

I'm feeling surprisingly confident that I'll be able to do this. To paraphrase Madonna, I reckon I'm getting "into the groove" with this whole "reading" malarky again after years of dithering because of my poor concentration.

Of course, I also really need to start reading some roleplaying game rules books as well if I want to prove to the Tuesday Knights that I'm ready to run a campaign for them without bottling it after a couple of sessions.

Meanwhile, as we stand. the top titles in my reading list to follow Draugr are: Deathstalker; The Hammer Horror Omnibus, Volume One; and Ghosts, Trolls and The Hidden People: An Anthology of Icelandic Folk Legends.