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Friday, April 14, 2023

Reviews: Smoking Causes Coughing, Escape From The Red Planet & Inkulinati

 
Smoking Causes Coughing
Magnet Releasing released film in theaters and on demand March 31, 2023
 
Quentin Dupieux, you crazy son of a bitch. What did I just watch? Maybe, I wasn't in the right mood, but it's hard to not get pulled in by the crazy premise of nonsense that is Smoking Causes Coughing. A super hero team on par with the Power Rangers in the theme of tobacco goes on a retreat. But, what follows is a series of other short stories with other implausible ideas. Some incredibly violent and bloody, but still with dark humor only a Frenchman could come up with.
 
Not surprising anyone is how bonkers the newest work from director Quentin Dupieux, who gave us Rubber, is. In other interviews he said he was inspired by the film Creepshow, so that's why we have this anthology film here, but the main story just begs further questions. But, do remember Quentin has also said he hasn't watched any of the Avengers movies and can't sit through them. So, maybe that's why his Power Ranger super hero team reference might seem so outdated.

To answer any other questions, I can't. All I can say is my friend really laughed when the team robot committed suicide. If you want to see something strange with some dark, dark humor rent it online or maybe catch it in theater if it's still out.
 
Escape From The Red Planet out now on PC and Mac
 
This tower defense game looked so cute with its minimalistic design and easy to play setup. Yet, I couldn't really get into it. You're stuck on Mars and have defend yourself from some slow-moving alien bugs. It just doesn't really get too enthralling on looks or design once played. It's a very simple game and that shouldn't stop it from being fun. With the controls, using a controller on PC, I just couldn't seem to switch between defense positions in an easy way. It just got tiring. And, every new fight against my enemies got kind of monotonous.

Can't give it that much of recommendation other than it's a very cheap game to pick up at $5.99.

Available now in Early Access on Steam, GOG, Xbox Game Preview for Xbox One & Xbox Series X|S & Xbox Game Pass
 
Been waiting forever on this one and technically I still am. I remeber back when it was just a Kickstarter...anyway. This game is in early access and it's hard to stop playing it once you have bunny paladins taking down foxes with spears on parchment pages in the margins of ancient texts.

Let me explain. And, it's a bit of a doozy. You control anthropomorphic animals (two legs good, four legs bad) you might see in the pages of old books from the middle ages. You yourself are sort of an ink-master and will do battle with many a foe on different pages all the while building your roster of different animals with different abilities. This requires some strategy just like any sort of duel.
 
What sets apart this from so many other strategy games is of course the look of the game. It looks like you could put these animal combatants in text books and lie to kids and say this was a real game played hundreds of years ago. Just on paper. Pre-consoles.
 
I found myself having a great time trying to figure out where to place my cat abbots, dog archers and bunny troops. It becomes easily addictive, even when losing as you want to see how fights will unfold or what other animal you should sub in.

The story mode that has you earn all your animal friends and special abilities is a fun way to pace you through all types of different fights and though it might be very silly; I'm pretty sure your master's resemblance to Yoda is uncanny, it still makes you want to play on.

Grab Inkulinati and get into the game and hopefully trick someone younger than you into believing it was real ages ago. 
 
No, no, you see George Washington and Ben Franklin played it too. If you look closely at the Constitution you can see indents of a donkey with a horn up its a**.
 
 
Film/Games provided by publisher for review purposes