HBO Now Review

The family and I have been sans cable TV for nearly 4 years now. One of the things we have always said is that we have no problem paying for the content we want to see. We just don't want to be paying $60 - $100 a month for a bunch of channels we will never watch. Don't even get me started on commercials as well. We bought 3 apple TV boxes for our televisions and started streaming Netflix (we already were paying for Netflix on top of our monthly cable TV bill). We supplemented Netflix by buying season passes through iTunes to any TV shows we wanted to watch. Upside was access to shows the day after they aired without any commercials. It even felt like we were saving money when we used credit card points to get iTunes cards. Since then we have purchased replacement apple TV boxes twice but overall we probably have saved a few thousand dollars by not having cable TV. On thing that always bothered me was that we couldn't access shows like Game of Thrones because a) HBO wouldn't allow season passes for the show on iTunes and b) they wouldn't allow viewing of their content without a cable subscription, until now.

This past week saw the rollout of HBO Now, a standalone HBO streaming service available without cable subscription. For $14.99 a month, you have unlimited access to HBO series and whatever movies they are currently offering. Though a bit pricey over all when compared to Netflix's streaming service, HBO Now does offer some things Netflix can't.

With HBO Now, you get access to content like Game of Thrones, Sex in the City, The Sopranos and Entourage (along with others). All available right after they originally air (no waiting for the season to end or the DVDs to be released a year later). You also get access to a mix of older and recently released movies, most of which are not available on Netflix. There are also the sports (mainly boxing), comedy and documentary specials that HBO has produced. HBO Now is accessible by computer, an app on Apple TV as well as a mobile device app (I have been using it on my iPad Mini). There is also one feature in the app that is unique compared to Netflix, the +10 button, allowing you to fast forward 10 seconds, which is so much better than trying to track forward using the scrolling bar - which always leads to buffering delays on Netflix.

HBO Now interface

As with any new service, there are some drawbacks that you should be aware of. The first movie we streamed on our Apple TV, The Heat, had a lot of stuttering in the video playback - no problems with the sound. The user interface on the mobile app is a little limited on the home screen when you first open the app, I find using the menu button the best way to navigate. The other drawback compared to Netflix is that content rotates on and off the service much faster than with Netflix (not including HBO-specific shows and specials). The monthly cost is also a little on the high side for the total amount of content provided, but the free first month helped mitigate some of that cost.

Main front screen for HBO Now - the 3 menu button upper left is your friend

I was able to sign up and register my device quickly through the iPad app using my iTunes account. This means I can pay the monthly fee through iTunes and not worry about my credit card being hit (as long as I keep an iTunes balance up). You can stop the subscription renewal at any time, it only renews one month at a time. Want to see all of a given show, sign up for a month after it has aired and stream it all then let the subscription lapse.

HBO Now is exactly what all content providers should be moving toward. There is no need for a "middle man" cable provider curating a large number of channels - we want and will pay for access to specific content we want to watch. It is cheaper for the viewer and directly benefits content providers who offer what we want to see. Is the service perfect, no, is it a good start, yes. Especially with the free first month, you should jump in and give it a try. HBO Now gets 4 Mick Happies. Now back to watching The Grand Budapest Hotel.

The Misenchanted Sword Review

Back in the 1980s I was reading most any fantasy book I could get my hands on. There were epic fantasies like the Lord of the Rings, more pulpy fare like Gary Gygax's books centered on Gord the Rogue and others. Somewhere in that mix, my dad and I read The Misenchanted Sword by Lawrence Watt-Evans. The Misenchanted Sword was something different from the other fare of the time and has become one of my favorite books.

The Misenchanted Sword is a standalone novel and first in what would become the Legends of Ethshar  series. This is the story of Valder, a scout, in the middle of a Great War that has been going on for generations who finds himself lost behind enemy lines. He finds a hut to shelter in, but some of his enemies come and burn the place down. He survives and runs into the owner of the hut, who is very angry to see his place ruined. The man who owns the hut turns out to be a wizard and enchants Valder's sword to help get Valder to leave. The rest of the book is about Valder and the sword and how his life is changed by the wizard's choice to help him.

What is different about the book is how quickly you become immersed in the world and the story. The book is not long, but you get a pretty meaty story about Valder and his challenges (I am trying to avoid spoiling anything). It also introduces you to a world that is fleshed out and vast, having started life as a role-playing campaign setting before becoming the backdrop for many novels. Lawrence Watt-Evans also has an easy style to his writing that blends humor and irony with nice twists, good for readers just getting started with fantasy.

Like the Discworld series, The Legends of Ethshar novels take readers to different parts of Ethshar and focus on different characters in almost every book. There are a couple that continue the story of one character or another for move than one book but in the early novels they are usually standalone. However, each peels back another layer in the overall world. There is war, magic, adventures, politics and more to be found in the stories. Overall, as of right now, there are 13 novels and one short story collection in the series. The most recent books having been written by the author as part of a reader-funded experiment on his website. He seems to be done with that experiment, but hopefully not done with writing in Ethshar.

Over the years, I have owned two copies of the book and loaned or gifted both away to try to share the story with other readers. It may be hard to find, but I think the Del Rey version has the best cover art, but any copy is good. If you like fun adventures with neat twists and imaginative world-building, you should give The Misenchanted Sword a try. Compared to the door stopper sized books in Fantasy today, you may find the shorter, but no less enjoyable, Legends of Ethshar books to be a breath of fresh air. Plus with as many of them as there are, people liking longer series will be covered as well. Here's hoping there are more Legends coming. The Misenchanted Sword gets 5 Mick Happies.

iNethack2 HD Review

@

The @ symbol has a lot of meaning for me and quite a few older gamers. Long before it was a part of user names on Twitter or even widely known as part of everyones email addresses, it was your player character in one of the best games ever, Rogue (1980). Yes, THE Rogue that is referred to when someone says (or writes) that a game is Rogue-like. Rogue begat Hack (1985) and Mike Stephenson made NetHack (1987). All of them share the same premise of an adventurer trying to retrieve the Amulet of Yendor from deep in a dangerous dungeon. They all sported the same ASCII graphics with the @ as your character you moved through the dungeon. If you haven't heard of them, they are the precursor to games like Diablo.

iNethack was the original version of NetHack to grace the App Store, but it was removed in 2014. It is now back as iNethack2 due to the hard work of Future Shock Software to update the code and get it back out there for players. As a free download, there is no reason why this isn't already on your device. It is compatible with iPhone, iPod and iPad. Or play the latest version of NetHack online here.

Pick a class, any class

The basics of the game are simple. You tap the screen in the direction you want to go. Double-tap and you move in that direction until you run into something or a monster shows up. Run into a monster and you attack it with your weapon. Have a ranged weapon, use the correct command letter in the command bar at the bottom to throw something (or zap if you have a wand or spell) at the monster. Kill it and you gain experience. Don't and you likely are going to die. To help you in your travels you start the game with a pet (kitten or puppy) who can also fight for you in some cases. Warning, your pet can die. You will die. Horribly and often. All of the Rogue-likes share one thing, death is easy and permanent. With the right settings chosen you might even run into your ghost in the dungeon one day.

The Quest

DawnHack tileset and UI

Sounds simple right? It is and it isn't. You have to manage your hit points, collect enough food not to starve, and solve puzzles to make it all the way to the bottom of the dungeon and get the Amulet let alone make it back out again. I have been playing for 30 years and I have never won. I have never even had the Amulet in hand. Even using wiki pages or downloaded guides, I have never ever even been close. It is that hard. I have also never stopped playing. It is that good a game.

Sometimes you take a risk and a Water demon crushes you.

So, dungeon crawl, permadeath and deep gameplay are all here. You choose between a number of character classes and races at the beginning of the game. Your choice determines your starting stats and general equipment. Rangers start with ranged weapons and food, Wizards with wands, rings and spells, etc. Your pet can help you find out if anything you find in the dungeon is cursed or not (a pet will only reluctantly step on a cursed item). Your pet can even help you steal from shops you find along your journeys - you just have to train him or her to do so (by throwing them food when they do something you like). Wish for the right thing and you can have Excalibur in your hand, polymorph objects to change them into better ones, use Genocide scrolls to get rid of extremely dangerous monsters like the Basilisk. Pray to your god for help. Eat what you kill to stay alive. It is all up to you and all in the game.

Here's a death. A sad pathetic one.

Worried that ASCII, old school graphics aren't your thing, you can change it in your settings to something more modern. (Exit the game, go to Settings on your device, find iNethack2, scroll down to Tileset to find a new one. You can also change your character name there or make other adjustments to the gameplay. The game has in-game help to get you started on what the commands do. Don't forget to use s to search as there are hidden traps and doors all over the place.

Here's a better death.

Here's everything I killed on my dungeon crawl.

Don't take my word for it. iNethack2 and its predecessors are some of the best games ever. They are free due to the awesome work of very smart people making them available that way. Go get a copy or play online. You won't regret it. iNethack2 gets 5 Mick Happies. If you like it, buy a copy of Future Shock Studios' Interplanetary Drift to say thank you for making it available on iOS again.

The Hobbit: Battle of the Five Armies Review

Trailer

I remember reading The Hobbit when I was growing up and again later at least once or twice. I watched the Arthur Rankin and Jules Bass animated movie many times growing up. It is probably that version of The Hobbit that is most visually imprinted into my mind when I think on the novel or any movies. I own at least two different versions of each of the Lord of the Rings movies (standard and extended) and enjoyed them quite a bit. The Hobbit trilogy, however, has been a bit of a mixed bag for me and here is why.

Visually, The Hobbit: Battle of the Five Armies and the preceding two films are amazing. The sweeping landscapes, the depth and awe-inspiring views are fantastic. Peter Jackson knows how to do a sweeping shot, such as looking up the vale from Laketown to Erebor. You can practically feel the distance and weight and breadth of the world. The sound is also exceptional and puts you right there with the characters on screen.

In addition, the source material is beloved, making me predisposed to loving the films. Unfortunately, as the Hobbit was stretched out to 3 films, so much had to be added that wasn't part of the Hobbit story that it became something different. The story grew in the telling as it were and ultimately what we get in The Hobbit: Battle of the Five Armies feels slow and plodding at times and rushed and incomplete in others.

Let's get through the things that didn't work for me (or my family) first. When we first see Legolas on screen my wife said, "Who's that?" and after I told her, "What did they do to him? He looks like a Ken doll." It took me another hour of the film to figure out why that was. I think it has to do with the frame rate or the way the movie was filmed, but the characters are all hyper-clear on screen and it makes everything look very odd overall. It is almost like the characters are super-imposed on the background at times (and maybe they were), but it took me out of the film at times because the world looked real, but the people didn't. They just didn't blend together right.

Another issue was the characterization. In order to build tension we have Thorin, Thranduil and others all being complete jerks. This actually drove my wife and daughter away - they left about an hour into the film to go play Chihuahua-opoly with lots of laughter ensuing. Of course the tension and characterization was in the original book - things are going on with these characters that cause them not to get along, but a lot of screen time is given to it that would have been better suited to use later in wrapping up the battle itself or giving others their due. For instance, we don't get enough of Beorn or wrap up of the overall battle. Also, why do dwarves gear up for battle and then take off a lot of the armor before actually going out to fight? Crazy.

Okay, deep breath, there are good things here as well. Bilbo (Martin Freeman) and Bard (Luke Evans) shine as good people in a bad situation. Both of them actually carry a lot of the real emotion in the movie (okay, Tauriel - Evangeline Lilly - does as well), but we get to spend a lot more time with Bilbo and Bard and none of that time feels wasted. Again, the visuals and sound are amazing - just what you would expect given the high bar that Peter Jackson has set with earlier films in Middle Earth. In addition, the very end of the film at Bag End is a lot of fun and much like I pictured in my mind.

Is The Hobbit: Battle of the Five Armies a great film? Not quite. Is it a decent film that gives us one last go-around in Middle Earth - absolutely. The film links up well with the Lord of the Rings in a way and getting to go on the journey with Bilbo has been nice. While I would have wanted more in some areas and less in others, I think the trilogy would have been best served by being 2 films, There, and a sequel, And Back Again. Maybe someday it will be tried or edited from the 3 films we did get. Three Mickhappies.

Motorsport Manager Review

We like cars and motorsports around our home. Occasionally watch F1, look at the new car models just about every year and play driving video games. One favorite has been Grand Prix Story by Kairosoft. I was excited to try out Motorsport Manager by Christian West.

Motorsport Manager is a racing simulation game where you take control of your own racing team. You make all the calls - where to invest, who to hire, who to fire, what strategy to use during the race, what pitting and tire strategy, etc. It's all in the game. Motorsport Manager is available for iOS and Android.

Motorsport Manager starts you off with modest amount of money and a low tech car and facilities. You choose between two low racing leagues to compete in with your two cars. You take on sponsors to help your team earn money from each race in order to reinvest in either facilities and staff or your young driver program. At the end of each race season you will earn prize money based on your position in the Constructor's Championship.

The game is split into 3 main areas, the management of your team, qualifying and each race. Prior to the race, you can make all of the team decisions - do you invest in manufacturing, aerodynamics or design. Each one will help improve your team's performance by either improving reliability or speed or acceleration or handling. Everything is a balance though as you have limited money and each time you improve an area it can increase the monthly cost of running your team.

During qualifying, you have to make choices between how you will setup your car - do you focus on cornering or straights, do you focus on top speed or acceleration or go neutral in your settings? Each may be better depending on the track that you happen to be racing on. Then what weather conditions will you experience, is it better to put your drivers out with soft, hard or wet tires? All these choices are yours and, along with the driver's skills and your car's capabilities, will determine if you get pole position for the race or languish back mid-pack.

Once the race starts, you are locked into the strategy you chose right before the green light drops. From there, your tactical choices include when to pit, the tires you put on the car and whether or not to push for faster lap times (at the expense of more tire wear). The difference between a podium place for one of your drivers and a mid-pack finish may be determined by your tire/pitting strategy. Soft tires are great on dry, cool days but wear much faster while hard tires are slower (except on hot, hot days) but will last  up to 8 laps or more. It's all up to you.

On my iPad mini with Safari and iBooks open in the background, the game does slow down and stutter during the races at times. You will also find yourself fast-forwarding the speed during the race and qualifying - which will make a race last less than 5 minutes. Take your time when you first start out, upgrade as much as you can and stay in the lower leagues until you have bought everything you can afford. Even when you are dominating the lowest racing leagues, you will be a middle of the road team in the next level. However, the next level will bring significantly better staff and drivers along with the toiling to try to improve (there is a lot more sponsor money at higher leagues, too, but the expectations are much higher). Don't worry that you can only improve your car through investment in your facilities as you will periodically be given a dilemma that may allow investment into immediate improvements to one aspect of your car or another (at a cost). If you aren't patient, the game also offers in-app purchases for more in-game dollars to invest, but it isn't necessary at all.

Motorsport Manager is a worthy racing simulation that feels like you are managing a racing team with the right level of granularity that it doesn't feel like you have to micro-manage. The races are bite-sized enough that you can play one in 2 - 5 minutes…which fits the mobile space well. Overall, it fits in the same sporting simulation space as Football Manager and Out of the Park Baseball. Motorsport Manager gets 4.5 Mick Happies. Well worth your time.

Star Realms Digital Card Game Review

A recent Humble Bundle was focused solely on card games. I picked it up and one of the games I was interested in giving a go to was Star Realms. I had it installed on my iPad mini for a while but hadn't started playing. Since the bundle gave me a full unlock to the base game, I was happy to spend some time playing around.

Star Realms is a deck building game from some of the same designers that made Ascension, several of whom were also professional Magic: the Gathering players back in the day. In a deck building game, both players start with a similar set of basic cards and there is a shared deck of advanced cards that they can select from on each turn. Cards are purchased from a "trade row" with resources gained by playing cards from your hand. See the pictures below - they show the cards in hand and the play space. As a player runs out of cards, they reshuffle their discard pile and start drawing cards again. In that way, cards from the trade row end up in their deck and are available to be played.

Basic game layout - my hand on bottom, my bases to the left

Star Realms gets increasingly complex from there. In the game each player has authority (hit points) and generate trade or combat points that are used to attack your opponent or to buy cards from the trade row of cards. The object of each game is to reduce your opponent to 0 authority. Simple enough, right? The game packs a lot of complexity from there. Individual cards may offer trade, combat or authority or any combination of them. Further, some cards are associated with factions like the Federation or Machine Cult or Blob and may, if multiple cards from a faction are played on the same turn it can result in additional effects. At times these effects might be more trade or combat or force an opponent to discard a card or you to draw a card. The cards in the trade row are either ships or bases; the difference being that bases stay in play once played until they are destroyed. Ships are played and then discarded at the end of each turn.

Mid-turn play

One of the great things about deck building games is that they add the additional strategy of choosing the right cards that come up to build an effective deck throughout the game rather than honing a deck prior to the game. This makes it easy to jump into a new game and makes each game different. The digital app for the physical card game, which is available on PC or iOS and Android devices allows you to play the basic game against the AI or a human opponent. It also includes a campaign of crafted scenarios where your starting deck or modifiers are added to make the game more challenging. Some of them can be quite difficult and are available in normal and hard version. There are also expansions available adding more cards and variety to the base game deck. The only drawback I have found is that the visuals are little small on the iPad mini, but that is more an effect of the device not the game. You can zoom in on any of the cards you want easily.

 Campaign chapters

Scenario description

If you are a fan of card games and want to have it available on the go, Star Realms is a great option. If you want an easily accessible but deep game, give it a try. Star Realms gets 4.5 Mick Happies.

Gotcha!

Nation by Terry Pratchett

Mau and Daphne

I think my first experience with Sir Terry Pratchett's work was reading Good Omens (co-written with Neil Gaiman) aloud on a car ride with my dad. After that it was some of the humorous fantasy novels in the Discworld series that included Granny Weatherwax and her crew of witches and a few books about Mort. Over the years I have picked up an odd novel here and there set in the Discworld and the whole family enjoyed the Tiffany Aching trilogy. Have even had the opportunity to get my copy of The Last Hero signed by the man himself. Therefore, it was pretty much a no-brainer when I saw that his award winning young adult novel, Nation, was on sale as an e-book for a ridiculously low price.

Nation is set mainly in an 1800s version of the South Pacific Islands in a world very similar to ours. It focuses on a young islander, Mau, who is just completing the right of passage to become a man when disaster strikes and destroys his world. Joining Mau on his journey is a young, ship-wrecked girl named Daphne and together they deal with grief, love, theology and what it means to be a people, a nation.

This book is fantastic in the thought-provoking way in which the characters question why life is the way it is. Why do bad things happen? If there are gods, why wouldn't they intervene for good people? Is it wrong to question the way things have always been? What causes one society to rise to greater heights of achievement and science than another? It also is dripping with the subtle humor that pervades  Terry Pratchett's work.

There are some difficult scenes in the book. I wouldn't recommend having it read by children under 11 or so without parental involvement since there is death and implied danger and medical procedures and the occasional "Show us yer drawers!" from a foul-mouthed parrot who is also quite a character in his own right.

I heartedly recommend that you grab a copy of Nation and give it a go or read it with your children. It is an empowering tale about dealing with loss and moving forward to achieve great things. About strength in not giving up. There are strong boy and girl characters to identify with and clever dialogue and thoughtful evaluation of religion and its place in our lives. Grab a copy and enjoy your time on the island with Nation, 5 Mick Happies.