Film Review:- Import/Export (2007)

Bit o' foreign cinema here for ya's all...

Import/Export is a 2007 film made by Austrian director/producer Ulrich Seidel, and follows the lives and changing fortunes of two individuals, an Austrian man named Pauli and a Ukranian woman named Olga, both of whom end up in each others countries whilst trying to get themselves out of various life related problems. The film cuts between the two unrelated stories periodically to show important plot developments as they go along.

Both stories show the everyday struggles of people trying to find work and make money to live on, even when they are at their lowest. For example, Olga takes a job working as a "camgirl" for a seedy internet porn site, and Pauli ends up trying to scam money from people in the street by claiming he lent them money while they were out drinking.
The thing is though, the film shows what seems to have become a norm for people who struggle to find work in this day and age, namely a job opportunity suddenly appears for both of them which seemingly offers a way out of their drudgery, however these wonderful, magical jobs end up vapourising quickly. In Olgas case, she is offered a job working as a housekeeper in Austria, and in Paulis case, he is offered a job installing gambling machines in the Ukraine, and in both cases, something, call it fate or simply bad luck, see them both getting the shitty end of the stick for following the opportunity through.

The film does a really good job of capturing the every day drudgery of modern life, from the scenes set in the porno studio, where its quite clear all of the camgirls working there are bored as fuck with their job and nothing is half as glamorous as what you'd think it is, to the scenes in which Pauli wanders the streets of Vienna bored and trying to scam or steal money from people to pay back what he owes to various unsavoury characters. One particular bit, which probably everyone will be familiar with, is a sequence of scenes in which Pauli and Olga receive "inductions", Paulis while on an insulting "back to work" type course at the jobcentre, and Olgas having to listen to an overly long and excruciatingly detailed presentation about the correct use of cleaning cloths.

Even though this film is terminally depressing, its one of those films that you watch with a morbid sense of curiosity, as it approaches the subject matter with a no holds barred attitude. When Olga ends up as a cleaner in a geriatric hospital, they don't hold back in showing what happens when you get dementia. When Pauli ends up visiting an East European romany settlement on business, they have no qualms about showing how awful the living conditions there are, nor what people will do for money.
Don't be expecting big laughs form this film, because there aren't any, the film goes to great lengths to show how ordinary people get treated like shit, and how more often than not the concept of the "happy ending" is only the stuff of fantasy.

Star Trek & Gaming : A retrospective.

As with the Babylon 5 Universe, much interest surrounded the Star Trek franchise with regards to gaming. The TV series alone features large set piece battles in deep space between Federation ships and alien vessels, so it comes as no surprise that fans would eventually want to recreate these battles in game form.

For this look at gaming in the Star Trek universe, I will not be looking at video game adaptations, as there have been a lot made over the years and warrant a piece of their own, instead, I am going to have a look at some of the more notable entries in the tabletop gaming and CCG aspect.

Star Fleet Battles - 1979

First produced by Task Force games in the U.S.A, Star Fleet Battles is a follow on work to the unlicensed 1972 "Star Trek Battle Manual".
Using miniatures or counters, this was the first real attempt to produce a space combat game set in the Star Trek universe as it was prior to the release of "Star Trek: The Motion Picture" in 1979 (essentially including everything featured in the Original series, plus the animated series)
The game follows the usual premise of having the players make a fleet for whichever race they choose (the game also contains rules for creating your own unique race and designing their spacecraft) , designing a scenario, and then fighting it out to see who is best.
The rules themselves are quite complex, leaning more towards fleet level actions and stressing the importance of looking after ships and using equipment and tactics as opposed to just charging in guns blazing, but game play can sometimes get bogged down with the more RPG aspects, requiring dice rolling to see which sub systems on ships are affected and applying modifiers to dice rolls etc.

Nonetheless, Star Fleet Battles continues to be one of the most, if not THE most popular Star Trek based tabletop miniatures game on the market, with various source books, rules updates and rejigged editions of the core rule book being released at semi regular intervals.
Although numerous "official" SFB miniatures have been released over the years, numerous miniatures companies make ships which are compatible with the system, and, with the advent of generally available 3d printers and 3d computer design, just about any ship can be made available for your fleet, all you need is some minis, a few hex bases, and you're off!.

Star Trek: The Customizable Card Game - 1994

Published by Decipher inc, this CCG is unusual as it is one of the few licenced Star Trek products to use imagery and plot lines from the TNG and movie era.
Using a play system which would later be adapted for their "Star Wars" card game, like all CCGs it requires players to purchase packs of cards to build gaming decks with.
In terms of actual game play, players would begin by placing cards from their "seed deck" which would take the form of locations and/or objectives to form a "spaceline", which they would then use cards from their "main deck" to travel along to complete missions, partake in ship and land battles or to fulfill some objective to secure victory points in order to become the winner.
Although the game enjoyed considerable popularity, with over 15 complete booster sets being released, as well as several different editions of the game and numerous variant methods of play being officially sanctioned, many players criticised the game play, citing that it was excessively complicated, especially so when a mechanic was introduced that meant that players would find themselves needing to construct additional side decks to accommodate "Q continuum" or "tribble" cards.
In many respects, ST:ccg played like a hybrid of a CCG and an RPG, many players found this a refreshing change, however those who were used to games such as Magic: The Gathering disliked the games various RPG like mechanics, which tended to make games somewhat long to play, especially in multiplayer games. That said, at its peak, ST:ccg was the third most popular ccg on the market, behind M:TG and Pokemon tcg.
The end came somewhat unexpectedly in 2007, when Decipher inc announced that they were discontinuing their ccg systems to concentrate more on their RPG and board game products, within a year they had disposed of their entire range of ccg products and had removed any mentions of "Star Trek" from their website.
The game still enjoys a cult following to this day though, with numerous "virtual" sets and rule updates being created by fans.

Federation Commander - 2005

Produced by the Amarillo Design Bureau, Federation Commander is essentially a simplified version of Star Fleet Battles, intended to make games quicker and simpler for those who do not have the time or patience to get to grips with SFBs somewhat complex rules and play style.
Using many of the same rules as SFB, FC is again set in the Star Trek universe as it was before 1979 and refers to itself as taking place during the non-canon "General War" period, thus providing a handy-dandy "get out" clause as to why everyone wants to kill each other.
FC uses the same miniatures and set up as SFB, and enjoys some popularity, with regular expansion books, boxed games, scenario packs and a thriving fan based home brew community providing feedback to the developers. The game is also somewhat unique in that it releases "booster packs" of cards containing ship tracking cards and equipment add ons, at the time of writing, there have been about 30 different booster sets for players to add variation to their fleets with.

Star Trek: A Call To Arms - 2011

Coming out at roughly the same time as their "Babylon 5: A Call To Arms" gaming system, and riding the wave of interest following the release of the "reimagined" 2009 Star Trek movie, Mongoose publishing had a stab at using their established "ActA" system with Star Trek.
Almost identical in gameplay to the B5 game, again players would build a fleet and using measuring tapes, dice and miniatures, fight a battle in the Star Trek universe.
Like its B5 counterpart though, Star Trek: ActA vapourised when Mongoose decided to cease production of miniatures wargames in order to concentrate on their much more successful (and cheaper to produce) paper and pencil RPG systems.
That said, ST:ActA was never as popular as B5:ActA, but still enjoys a lot of online fan interest, with "official" minitures changing hands on ebay for good prices now that they have been long discontinued.

Star Trek: Tactics - 2012

The Star Trek licence was next picked up by miniatures game manufacturers Wizkids.
Star Trek: Tactics was essentially a version of their highly successful "Heroclix" game, using ships from the Star Trek universe coupled with their "clixbase" game mechanic to produce a quick to play starship combat game.
Over the course of its run, Tactics had three distinct versions, numbered one to three (Tactics I, Tactics II and Tactics III) all of which added additional rules, races and ships. As standard, the game was available in "boxed" format, containing all the game play essentials, with additional ships being purchased in "blind bag" format, in the same way as Heroclix is sold.
Although the game enjoyed a small level of popularity, it never really took off, as most players saw the game system as being too simple and too similar to Heroclix to accurately represent a space combat game.
Officially, ST:Tactics has not been discontinued, however no new releases for it have been made since 2013.

Star Trek: Attack Wing - 2013

Wizkids were not done withe the Star Trek licence just yet, and, following on from their successful "Star Wars: X-wing" game, they adapted the rule set to produce this game.
ST:AW allows players to use a points system to build fleets and give the individual ships crews and equipment. Generally a fleet will consist of about 3 or 4 ships, and uses Wizkids' proprietary "FlightPath" manoeuvre system (a series of bespoke movement templates to represent sharp turns, shallow turns and straight manoeuvres, used in conjunction with "manoeuver dials" to plot ship courses for the turn) as well as red and green D8s to represent ships firepower and defensive abilities.
Numerous cardboard tokens are included with the games starter sets and expansion packs which are used in game to represent shields, targeting markers, sensor pings and alert conditions, all of which are used in relation to actions performed by ships.
What makes this game unique is the use of semi-collectable playing cards containing ship, crew and equipment data. Each card is allocated a faction and a point value, which players must choose when building their fleets, in this sense, it eliminates the need for record sheets etc as used by other similar space combat games. Many cards used in this war will have different versions, either using different artwork, or representing different versions of the same characters/ships from different points in the universe history.
The game comes as a "Boxed" starter kit, and players can purchase "Expansion" packs containing a single ship, plus cards, tokens and scenarios for use with that ship. Wizkids have also made special "Prize" ships and items available through Organized play events, which are usually based on episodes or storylines from the various TV series.
This game still enjoys some popularity, with new ships being released on a rough 3-monthly basis, however some players (myself included) have criticised the games system for not following the "feel" of the Star Trek universe. Many of the problems with the game system include numerous "grey areas" created by new items and characters being released which cause problems or conflicts with existing basic game play mechanics, leading to unbalanced game play and unbeatable combinations of ships and equipment. most notable in the games failures is the fact that the rules, although perfectly ok for X-wing type "dogfights", do not lend themselves terribly well to being a fleet/squadron level capital ship combat simulation. For example, there is little to nothing by way of combined actions or fleet bonuses, aside from the aforementioned "unbeatable card combos" that crop up and spoil it for everyone.

Nevertheless, when played "as intended" ST:AW can be an enjoyable game, albeit one in desperate need of an overhauled "2nd edition" rule set.

Serial offender - Archer's Goon (CBBC 1992)

Its time for another delve into the murky world of children's television serials again...

Archer's Goon was a 1992 CBBC adaptation of the 1984 young adult fantasy novel written by Diana Wynne Jones.


Howard Sykes is an average 13 year old boy who lives with his parents, younger sister and their au pair in the fictional town of Holisbury.
One day, Howard is surprised when a leather clad, thuggish looking man, the titular "goon", turns up in a bin lorry at his home demanding to speak with his father Quentin; a local writer and teacher of English, with regards to "the payment of 2000".
Obviously, Howard and his family assume that this means some kind of monetary payment, and the"goon" is an enforcer for some shady criminal organisation, however, when they finally speak with Quentin, it turns out that "2000" actually refers to 2000 words.
Quentin explains that 13 years ago, he was suffering from writers block, but was miraculously cured of it when he was made an offer by local councillor, Mr. Mountjoy. In exchange for Quentin producing a document containing 2000 nonsense words once a year, Mountjoy would make sure that the Sykes household kept its amenities (gas, electric, water etc), and not have to pay for them, also, writing the document would force Quentin to come out of his writers block, and, oddly, it worked.

The goon explains that this years document did not reach "Archer", despite being delivered to Mountjoy at the local town hall as promised, and, as such "Archer" had sent the goon round to collect the "debt", with failure to produce an acceptable document punishable by having local amenities removed. Quentin sits and writes a replacement document, however this one is later found to be unacceptable, as it contains passages which appeared in previous entries, so, the Sykes family find themselves coming under some bizarre attacks, such as their water and power being cut off, local shops refusing to serve them, schools refusing to allow Howard and his sister to attend, rubbish laying uncollected and, most bizarrely, Howards mothers musical instruments playing themselves loudly and continuously.
The goon takes an unusual interest in Howard, and takes him to see Mr. Mountjoy to find out who "Archer".
As it turns out, the town of Holisbury is actually run by seven mysterious individuals with magical powers, all of whom "farm" certain aspects of town life in order to maintain their power:-

Archer - Controls the towns money and local authorities
Shine - Controls local crime
Dillian - Controls local law enforcement
Torquil - Controls local music, religion, sports activities and shops
Hathaway - Controls local transport, as well as town record keeping and administration
Erskine - Controls local refuse collection and water supply
Venturus - Controls local education and housing

Howard, after eventually getting to meet with Archer, begins to unravel the mystery as to what the 2000 words his father produces are actually used for, and exactly what part he personally plays in all this.

This is one of those stereotypically "British" bits of telly that folk from other countries would find difficult to "get". The fantasy environment it takes place in is wonderfully weird in its premise, insofar as that although most people live in the "ordinary" world, there is in fact a secret "underworld" that few people know or care about that actually pulls the strings of everyone in the town. The story also has a wonderful kind of "whodunnit?" mystery attached to it, and, eagle eyed viewers should be able to spot tell tale signs of the true story right from the first episode.

This is an enjoyable serial, and, having read the book, I can say that the TV adaptation is pretty damn close to the original source material.

Video Game Review - Apache: Air Assault (Xbox 360)

Ive been buying cheapo video games again!

Apache: Air Assault is a 2010 action flight simulator game, developed by Russian game developers Gaijin Entertainment and published by Activision.

I picked up my copy for a measly £4 from the Doncaster branch of CEX , and, having immensely enjoyed the "Strike" series of games, I thought it would be a groovy idea to climb into the cockpit of an attack helicopter and rain hellfires, hydras and 30mm cannon ammo down on some assholes once again.

I wasn't disappointed :)

The games story line takes place over a fictionalised modern day setting, following the adventures of "Taskforce-191"; a multinational (mainly US and UK) anti-terrorism taskforce that uses attack helicopters in conjunction with air cavalry to combat terrorists and drug cartels in the Middle East, South America and former Soviet states.

As the games title suggests, your main vehicle of aerial pwnage is the Apache attack helicopter, you get to use various different versions of it, ranging from the "standard" US issue AH-64D "Longbow", to the UK version, the Westland AH-1 Apache (although in practice, the differences between the two are purely cosmetic).

The campaign missions have a series of objectives to be completed, such as destroying an enemy stronghold, destroying transport columns, protecting friendly buildings or providing air cover to ground forces while they clear out buildings.
In this respect, the game becomes a little repetitive, with many of the missions seemingly being more difficult versions of ones you've already done.

The games controls are difficult to master, being as they operate in pretty much the same way as a real helicopters controls would do, with one stick performing double duty by controlling altitude/air speed and direction, and the other stick controlling pitch and yaw.
The game has two distinct flight modes, "Training" keeps your chopper within "safe" pitch/yaw limits (one of the games achievements rewards you for performing a barrel roll, which can't be done in training mode), whereas "Realistic" sees your chopper performing some extremely unsafe/suicidal maneuvers with no safety margins. For novice players, "Realistic" mode, coupled with the difficult to handle control system, will see them crashing whenever they try to fly, however, the flight sim experience is one of the best I've seen for a helicopter game on a home console.

As this is an action game, there is, of course, combat to be done. The Apaches main armaments consist of a 30mm cannon for anti personnel work, Hydra "dumb fire" rockets for explosive ground support against lightly armoured vehicles,  Hellfire ATGMs for anti armour work and Stinger Air-to-Air missiles for use against nay aircraft you come across.

Your copilot can use the cannon independently, but control of the missiles comes down to you. Now, whereas the Hellfires and Hydras generally hit what you aim them at, the Stingers are another story.
You see, the problem is is that the AA combat portions of the game are frustrating as hell, being as 99.99% of the time, your Stingers will fail to hit, much less destroy whatever you use them on, and you spend a hell of a lot of time jockeying for position with Mi-35 Hinds (the export version of the Soviet era Mi-24 Hind) in the hopes that you can catch them with a "ripple fire" of Hydras or a good couple of hits from your 30mm, which is made harder by the odd fact that you cant seem to climb fast enough to get above them into the best position to fire. (It should be noted that Air-to-Air combat between helicopters in real life is extremely rare, with less than a hand full of reported incidences of it actually happening)

The other thing is that although you are given a certain number of "lives" to allow you to continue if you get shot down, the games AI likes to respawn you in rather odd places, which, I have found quite often leads to the bad guys "spawn killing" you in a hail of RPG fire before you have chance to maneuver away from the respawn point...cue a lot of me shouting "oh for fucks sakes!" after I get spawn camped into oblivion.

Outside of the campaign mode, there is "Free flight" mode, which allows you to pilot other choppers featured in the game, such as the Hind and the MQ-8 "Fire Scout" drone in mock battles.
There is also an online portion of the game, as well as a co-op mode.

All in all, Apache: Air Assault is one of the better combat flight sims available for home consoles, although its not perfect, it is still pretty good, and worth picking up for the cheapo.

Final score: - 8/10