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And more!

 

Chairman of the Board: No one
can hear you scream

> ‘Legendary Encounters’ board game review

Ed Appleby
Illustrator

 

ome co-op games are easy.
Some are difficult. And in
some cases, a different version
of an easy game can be brutal.
Based on Ridley Scott’s Alien
franchise, Legendary Encounters
is a cooperative deck building
game for 1-5 players designed by
Ben Cichoski and Danny Mandel
and published by Upperdeck
Entertainment in 2014. Players
use cards of various powers and
prices to battle xenomorphs
rampaging throughout their
ship, all while attempting to
complete several tasks that will
put an end to the alien uprising.
In September I reviewed
an earlier version of Legendary
based on the Marvel universe,
and though I thought the
game was fun I found it much
too easy for a co-op style
game. This has been more

than remedied in Legendary
Encounters. This game takes

no pity on you or your team. In
the Marvel game, wounds are a
mere inconvenience that take

a small amount of resources

to heal. In Encounters, death
comes swiftly and unexpectedly,
and player elimination
becomes a serious factor.

This combination of higher
stakes and harder gameplay
gives Encounters a very tense
and claustrophobic feel,
which, if you know the Alien
franchise, captures the main
theme beautifully. There is also a
Predator version of the game that
can be integrated with the Alien
one to create your own crossover.

Due to the intensity of the
game | wouldn’t recommend
it for younger children or
gamers looking for light fare,
but fans of the Alien franchise
and groups looking fora
punishingly difficult co-op
game will not be disappointed.

Short but sweet

> Academy Award candidates for Best Short Film

Jerrison Oracion
Senior Columnist

 

he Academy Awards do not

only honour the best in
feature films. They also honor
the best in documentaries and
short films. Short films tend to
be much shorter in length than
feature films, but they can also
be very complex. Many now-
famous directors of feature films
got started with short films.

This year’s nominations
for Best Animated Short Film
are Sanjay’s Super Team,
World of Tomorrow, Bear
Story, We Can't Live Without
Cosmos, and Prologue.

First shown with Pixar’s
The Good Dinosaur, Sanjay’s
Super Team involves a boy
named Sanjay, who imagines
fantasy versions of Hindu deities
while praying with his father. It
features the gods Vishnu, Durga,
and Hanuman, three key figures
of Hinduism, with a superhero
twist. In World of Tomorrow, a
girl named Emily meets a future
version of herself and goes ona
tour of her future. While it has a
lot of great jokes, it is a bit dark.

 

LIVE ACTION | ANIMATION | DOCUMENTARY

Bear Story involves a bear trying
to get back to his family after
being kidnapped by a circus.

We Can't Live Without
Cosmos shows two friends

training for a mission to
space. Things start out
optimistically, but the film
becomes very dark in the
second half. Prologue shows

a battle during the Spartan-
Athenian War, shot ina style
that feels very similar to 300.
This year’s nominations
for Best Live Action Short

 

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Ilustration by Ed

Film this year are Ave Maria,
Friend, Everything Will Be
Okay, Stutterer, and Day One.
Ave Maria involves an Israeli
family getting help from a
group of Palestinian nuns after
their car breaks down. Friend
features a person named Petrit
remembering a friend that he
had during the Kosovo War
named Oki. It is very dark,
but many viewers will likely
be able to guess the ending.
Everything Will Be Okay tells
the story of Michael, a recently
divorced man who kidnaps his
daughter Lea out of desperation.
Stutterer is an odd romantic
comedy that goes inside the
mind of Greenwood, a man with
a stutter. Day One chronicles a
US. Army translator’s first day
on the job. She finds herself
in a high-risk situation where
she is forced to rescue a child.
As live action and animated
short films are typically shown
as limited releases, most people
don’t get a chance to see them.
This year’s nominated short films
are currently being shown in
the Vancity Theater, so if you're
interested in short films, there
is still a chance to watch them.