More repetition of mostly the same rules and laws from Numbers and Leviticus, but now we see just how wrathful God gets about his flock going astray. He knew exactly what would happen and fully expected that the Israelites would gripe and fall in with the false idols of the natives of the promised lands. It’s basically a demonic horror villain promising all the ways he’s going to make you suffer. I just feel bad for Moses, who tried real hard to keep a society of people in good standing with the Lord but they were just not gonna have it.
I gotta say, I look forward to these shorter books after the long stretches. Josue is believed to have been written by the man himself except for a few final verses added on after his death, an interesting sidenote in this revision. In content, it’s mostly another inventory of the people of Israel and Josue’s role as executor of God’s estate after the Israelites swept through and killed most of the natives. The Old Testament seems to be mostly rules, inventory, and promises of horrible pain and death.
This first part of a trilogy delivered on classic characters in their element, though the authors made some weird choices around characters expressing their attractions and it made some dialogue and behaviors feel out of character.
Then the second part of the trilogy goes off-the-wall ape-shit in its plot. It really is a mind-boggling series of events with some especially gruesome moments of violence. Not bad, per se, but taking the characters out of their element really threw me for a loop. It reminds me of many a middle entry that just isn’t particularly pleasant because bad things are happening to characters I know and it won’t be resolved until the third part.
Inferno by Judith & Garfield Reeves-Stevens (2000)
The time travel element hits hard in the ending of this trilogy of novels, and although they get long-winded at times, it’s fun when characters are trying to use technobabble to explain time travel mechanics and paradoxes woven into the many wild layers of shenanigans. But this one ends the horrifying stuff that happens in the previous book and brings everyone back to Deep Space Nine, which I very much appreciated. It’s maybe too neat an ending considering everything they experience, but it’s also where they needed to be since this all takes place in the latter part of the sixth season of the show.
Nintendo hard still applies to this game from quite late in the life of the NES, but it may be the most mechanically fun of the various games based on Young Indiana Jones. I’m still wondering if this deserves more praise than it seemed to receive in its time.
Whereas this second 2D platformer tried for some technical feats and really just falls flat with its bonkers physics and controls. The very long list of testers guarantees that the issues were noted and this was the best they could do in what I can only assume was a very short development period.
I was trying to remember if Flash was still relevant for game development in 2007, and I think it was on its way out then. I still harbor some nostalgia for the vector visuals.
Someone decided the first game was too easy and cranked up the difficulty of the dexterity challenges, which is an odd choice for slow-paced games based around adequately preparing for long journeys a la The Oregon Trail and answering historical trivia questions.
While mechanically these simple dialogue and mini game assemblages aren’t very interesting, their edutainment factor is impressive. I really did learn some history each time a character asked me for some obscure detail about war machines or tribal rituals.
I always remembered the final episode as a particularly clever way to end a syndicated animated show that would mostly be watched out of order. And considering that this show was made to advertise toys to kids, it’s a surprisingly mature and dark look at the ol’ hero’s journey.
