The Homeless Nerd Reviews- Captain America: The Winter Soldier

At a glance- superhero action with a dash of spy thriller for seasoning

What is it? In Captain America: The First Avenger we met 90-pound weakling Steve Rodgers who through the magic of science gets turned into 200-pound beefcake Captain America during World War 2.  He fought against Hydra, a splinter group of the Nazis who found magic-science weapons thanks to the Cosmic Cube (which was featured in The Avengers).  Along the way he loses his best friend "Bucky" Barnes to the Nazis and his budding girlfriend when he lands a plane full of deadly weapons, and himself, in the ocean.  Frozen on ice for 40-ish years his super-body manages to survive being a cap-scicle and he awakens in the modern world.  Winter Soldier picks up after The Avengers with cap working for S.H.I.E.L.D. and trying to adjust to the modern world.

The acting- A lot of people reprising roles, starting with Chris Evans as Captain America/Steve Rodgers.  I like him in this role, I think he brings exactly the right amount of earnest boy scout and super-soldier to his performance.  Samuel L Jackson is Nick Fury, and fits the role perfectly as usual.  Scarlett Johansson is The Black Widow/Natasha Romanoff, and is not just eye-candy, she does a great job of playing a complicated character.  New to the series is Robert Redford as S.H.I.E.L.D. top-man Alexander Pierce, and let's face it- Robert Redford rarely does a bad acting job.  Anthony Mackie is also new as Sam Wilson/ The Falcon, does a great job and I'm glad to see Marvel did a great job with updating the character from the comic books.

The story- Superhero movies are about two things: saving the world and action/explosions/fight-scenes.  Spy movies are about two things: lies and trust.  Combining them, like in Winter Soldier, makes for an interesting movie, if not exactly revolutionary.  Cap is a big boy scout at heart, wanting to do the right thing for mom and apple pie - but now he's working for S.H.I.E.L.D., who like all spy organizations is full of secrets and deception and 'trust me I'm doing it for the greater good but you can't know about it.'  I do love a line from Nick Fury where he reminds Cap that even the 'Greatest Generation' of the 40's did some things to be ashamed of - no generation has ever been perfect, and hindsight tends to gloss over the ugly parts of history.  And when Nick Fury is attacked, and warns Cap 'don't trust anyone,' it becomes apparent that something rotten is going on in S.H.I.E.L.D.'s shadowy Denmark.  Which then sends Cap, The Black Widow, and new friend Falcon on a race to save the world, since this is a superhero movie too.  And being a superhero movie, we need a super villain in The Winter Soldier, a Russian assassin with a robotic arm who can give even Cap a run for his money in a fight.
    I really liked this movie, and I really liked how Marvel branched out to make a superhero movie that isn't just about men in tights (and women in revealing tights).  The bit of spy thriller in the plot helps to make it a more well-rounded movie - and makes the Captain America series even better.  In the first Cap we had the period war drama/superhero movie, now we get Spy Games (I had to throw in the reference)/superhero movie and that is great since it covers all the the comic book Captain America's history and character.  He was a man of two eras, someone who struggled to do the right thing when that's not always easy to see, let alone do.  And added to the modern age of electronic surveillance, drones and the complicated threats the world faces it makes for an interesting story and makes Cap the one superhero from The Avengers who actually feels like he fits in the world.  Overall I'd have to say that even for its over-the-top special effects and save-the-world storyline, it actually feels like a very grounded and real kind of superhero movie, which is a neat trick.

My recommendation- worth paying full price, and if you're not really into superhero movies, you should give this one a try (catch the cheap show, it might surprise you)

Guild Wars 2 - First Impressions

    My birthday was last week, the annual reminder that death is approaching, and my friend got me Guild Wars 2 for my present.  It is not a new game, this review is pretty old, but it's one of the few things I have to talk about at the moment, so here goes.

    The first thing that struck me about the game, which I really like, is that even though it is an on-line MMO you do not have to pay a monthly fee.  You just buy the game, or convince someone else to do that for you like I did, and you can play as much as you want.  That's really nice.  I don't like having to pay the constant monthly fees, or try to manage the free-to-play that is almost always a butchered and cut-down version of the real game (though not in all cases, Star Trek Online is a pleasant exception to the rule - though one of my favorites, Everquest 2, is virtually unplayable without paying).  So that was a strong point in its favor.
    The game came on 2 DVDs, after installing it updated itself, and the whole process took maybe 2-3 hours (I took a break which slowed things down).  Not that bad, given just how big most MMOs are - I've spent literally 6 hours updating Lord of the Rings Online.
    Logging in it seems to be a popular game, there was a massive list of worlds and almost all of them said they had 'high' populations.  I ended up on Vabbis, a European server (despite my being in the US) because it was literally the only one that had a 'medium' population.  Even though I don't mind playing MMOs, I'm not really a big group/party guy, I prefer to solo unless I can get one of my (few) friends on with me.
    Creating a character was a bit of a surprise and a really nice change form the typical MMO.  I made a plant-person called a Sylvari (just 'cause, they were the first choice highlighted and I knew nothing about the game to base a decision on).  In LotRO my favorite character is a Warden and I'm the tank of the group, so for GW2 I made my plant-guy a Guardian.  Then the real fun began.  I was asked a few questions about my character's background.  The Sylvari exist in The Dream and then they get called to be born in the real world, so I was asked about what symbol called me in the Dream (I chose a shield with a symbol of the crescent moon) and how I approached problems (I chose being honorable) and what my favorite possession was (I took the shoulder-armor) and a few other things.  This was a really nice touch.  As a big pen-and-paper role-player I liked that kind of feel of actually making a character.  Most MMOs just drop you into the game as a non-person with a burning desire to kill 10 rats and carry messages.  And what made it better was that my choices, some of them at least, had an impact on the game.  I did have the shoulder armor when I started.  My personal 'main quest' had me meet an NPC with the shield I saw, a sign that I was meant to help him.  But the downside was that some of the choices either did not have an impact, or else that impact is hidden.  My choice of being honorable seems to be some kind of conversation menu, I saw those choices in a quest trying to influence another NPC, but they are not explained and do not seem to have any direct or clear impact on the game.  Now, granted I could look them up on the wiki, but I really wish that game designers would put everything you need to know to play the game in the game itself - that is one of my top five hate, hate, hates about MMOs.  Still, minor gripe aside, the system was a great addition.  It may not be terribly deep, but it is much better than the nothing for background you get in other MMOs.
    Playing the game started with the obligatory tutorial zone, where I was dreaming and contacted by a living Sylvari.  And gameplay in GW2 is quite different from most other MMOs too.  I only had 6 abilities to start and 1 special from my class.  Which was the first thing I noted - there are not a lot of buttons.  You max at three class abilities mapped to F1 - F3, and five weapon abilities (1-5), one healing ability (6) and then 3 utility abilities (7-9) and one epic ability (0).  Those are the max, you start with only 7 of the possible 13.  That is a lot less that the typical MMO, which I have to admit was another thing I really liked.  I hate having sixteen hotbars of abilities cluttering my screen and trying to remember the specific circumstance I need to use them in.  I loved my LotRO Warden because I had 3 abilities that I combined to create my special moves - so all I needed was a single hotbar.  GW2 is not quite as nice as my Warden, but the reduced abilities are a positive feature in my book.
    The abilities are different also because 5 of them come from your weapon(s).  Three are the main-hand and two are the off-hand, or all 5 come from a two-handed weapon.  That's cool because when you switch weapons you change your abilities.  It's also a little odd, because in most games your abilities come from your class, basically from who/what you are - while here they come from what you're carrying.  Though, each class can use different weapons and gets different abilities from them, so it is still customized, but it does feel a little odd sometimes.  You also unlock the weapon abilities, you start with just the default attack and each monster you kill with the weapon earns separate xp to unlock the other abilities, I liked that too - it would be awesome if they included special weapons that had their own ability track (which would be a great way to make a magic weapon actually feel magical - just by having different abilities then the others of its kind), would love to see that in an expansion/update (though heck, it may be in there somewhere, I have not played a lot so far).  Each class can use several weapons, and they are geared for a certain fighting style.  My Guardian's two-handed sword is good for area-effect damage, while my mace lets me heal myself and nearby allies.  Overall the Guardian's weapons are melee, only two actually have a ranged attack, which reinforces the feel of the class.  And there are some odd weapons, like a torch, and steampunk-styled guns and rifles.
    Leveling-up is a bit different.  Levels 1 through 5 don't really give you anything.  At level 6 you earn your first skill point to start buying your utility skills.  Each list of utilities are unique to each class, but you can only have a few of them active at a time.  Also, you get a few class skills, and for my Guardian they provided passive boosts, but I could actively use one to get a bigger bonus which disabled it for a few seconds afterwords.  With most of the focus being the weapons and killing monsters, I tended to forget about my other abilities, and I chose most of the passive ones for the steady bonuses anyways.
    In the game itself were a few more pleasant surprises.  GW2 is very area-based.  What I mean by that is, in most MMOs you have a central hub of quests and those quests send you all over the map to other zones.  In LotRO you pick up a quest in Bree, and may have to go to the Shire to complete it.  GW2 drops that for a single quest-giver with multiple tasks in a single zone.  So, I woke from the Dream and entered the forest.  A little ways ahead I met a Scout.  Talking to the Scout gave me a voice-over narration of some back-story and filled in sections of my world map (which has fog of war) with who was where and what help they needed and what level their quests were.  It is great, awesome, wonderful and excellent.  I complained earlier about having to look outside the game for how to play, this was the right idea of keeping important information in the game, and making NPCs more useful.  Wish they did it more (former adventurers could tell you about monsters or quests and such).  Still, I like it, it works great - and it helps you stay in the zones that are for your level so you don't get horribly mauled by a monster you were not ready for.  From the Scout's directions I headed towards the nearest zone.  It was a dog pen, and I got to turn myself into a dog and interact with other dogs and fight spiders and sniff things out.  It was fun, and changed my abilities to dog abilities (which is how you use having only one hotbar, you change it with the circumstances).  While I was in the pen there was a local event, another part of the zone-based questing, where a giant mosquito queen attacked the pen, followed by another event where spiders attacked.  These events will appear by a schedule or will be triggered by anyone completing a certain quest in that zone and they pop-up on the screen if you're in that zone.  Which is cool.  It sort of makes the world feel like a living thing.  With my second character, whom I'll talk more about later, I was doing an underwater quest and triggered an event that turned every creature in the water hostile (which was not a good thing - and a reminder not to do a quest chain when you are a level below the recommended) so that effected not only me (I died a lot) but also anyone else in the water (thankfully I don't think there were too many, they might not have appreciated their peaceful swim turning into a bloodbath).  The 'triggered' events add a nice level of surprise and like I said add the feel of a living world.
    I ran around and cleared a couple of zones.  You can also earn xp by discovering locations, and even jumping-puzzles that give you a cutscene view of the zone.  I first saw xp for exploring in Everquest 2 and I liked it here as much as there, nice to get a little reward for running around.  You can discover waypoints and quick-travel to them at any time from the world map, also nice (swift travel always is) even if it does cost a few copper.  Eventually I went to the main city off the forest map.  I hate that stupid place, The Grove, just because it is a multilevel map.  Doing maps with floors is a hard thing when your mini-map is 2D, and while GW2 is not as bad as Morrowind, it is still very hard to make sense of what floor something is on and how to get there.  At least, it was for me.  Eventually I explored the place enough to get around easily, but that is a mixed positive/negative feature IMHO.  I also tried crafting, because I like crafting, and I was disappointed.  You have to buy a stack of harvesting tools, so you need to keep an eye on how many you have (which can only be done by opening your character screen) and nodes can only be seen on the mini-map and they blend in really, really well with the background so you need to keep a sharp eye out.  Lord of the Rings Online did it better, with a re-usable harvesting tool that could be upgraded to give bonuses and a special ability for each crafting class to highlight nodes of certain types on the mini-map.  Also, you only start with a few recipes, I took armorer as one of my two possible crafting classes and I could not make the shoulder armor or helmets (and I was hoping to be able to make a helmet which was my only missing armor slot).  Finding recipes requires experimenting with random drops and stuff and is a kind of hard to understand system - you have to just throw stuff out there and hope you can learn what you want.  Actually, that's the problem with crafting in GW2 - too much randomness.  You need random drop materials to craft with (oh boy, more monster grinding) in order to make virtually every item.  Grind, grind, grind.  Everquest 2 did better with books of leveled recipes and special recipes as drops, or LotRO where unlocking a new skill tier automatically gives some basic recipes and special ones drop.  If recipes drop in GW2 I have not seen it yet.  Crafted items are the same quality as things you can find, so you don't even really get any benefit from crafting - the only exception being the leather-worker who can craft larger inventory slot bags.  All in all crafting was a disappointment, and Everquest 2 is still the best crafting system in an MMO that I've found.
    After getting to level 10 with my Sylvari Guardian I decided to make a new character to try to get a feel for the other classes.  You get 5 character slots, and there are 5 races but 8 or 10 classes (can't remember which).  There is a store, so you can pay extra money to get upgrades, and no doubt extra character slots are something you can buy.  I haven't looked at the store because I am dead broke in the real world right now - but honestly I would not mind spending money on this game, so far it has been good.  For my second character I made an Asura Engineer.  That turned out to be an odd class.  I expected to drop turrets or make stuff, which I eventually got up to, but at start I just shot my pistol.  I got a shield, which turned out to be not really worth it - should have taken a second pistol.  I just recently found a rifle and am unlocking it.  There is also underwater combat and quests, and every class gets an item to breathe underwater plus a trident or harpoon gun to fight with.  Like that, wish there was more underwater exploring (something I loved about Morrowind) and not just combat.  Maybe there is later.  Also I discovered another great feature- all the money you earn is shared among your characters and your bank storage space is shared among your characters.  Awesome, awesome, awesome.  Hate juggling my LotRO shared storage (which is too limited to begin with).  Having every character on the same page is fantastic.  Also, while you have bank space, you also have extra space for crafting and some collectable items - again awesome, keeps your crafting materials from taking up all your space (the only part of the crafting system they really got right).  Achievements like things killed or places explored are also shared among characters, and that's great too.

    All in all I've only played for about 3 days and gotten two characters up to levels 10 and 6.  I have just seen the very beginning of the game.  And I like what I've seen.  I am interested enough to keep playing and seeing what the game has in store, and to start some extra characters and get a feel for the other classes.  There are a few things I don't like - but I could say that about every game, and they are minor problems for the most part (though, I am really hoping for a crafting revamp in the future).  In all, even if I had spent the money myself for the game, I would feel like I had gotten a good deal.  GW2 just feels different from the other MMOs I've played, in a subtle way, and I like it.  It runs well even on my two-year old cheap laptop and looks very nice.  It was a good present, and now I just have to talk all my friends into playing it with me (only fair play, they all got me started with LotRO).  If you're looking for an MMO that is a little traditional and a little different, and that you don't have to constantly pay for then you should take a look at it.  I'm happy with it, and I'll put plenty more hours into it.

A Brief Word After The Long Silence

    Wow, 2013 ended on a really bad note for me- then 2014 started worse.  Someone very dear to me died last year, and my Grandfather whom I've been living with died this month.  The holiday season always sucks, has for a long time, and continued that trend last year.  So things have not been going terribly well, which led to the blog getting pushed onto the back burner.  I'm going to try to finish the projects I started and post something soon, most of the drama has died down so I can think again.  But, for the one or two of you who have followed this blog, I'm still around and while things have been bad I'm hopeful that they will soon turn around.  So, for my gentle readers, please stay tuned and I apologize for the delay.

My RPG Person Profile (thanks to Zak)

    Zak over at Playing D&D With Pornstars posted this and I thought, what the heck, I might as well post mine.  It's taken me a while to get to it, since other things keep intruding on my limited brainpower.  So here's my profile (such as it is):

I'm currently running (at home): Pathfinder (intermittently, very intermittently)

I would especially like to play/run: The Dresden Files (Fate) - love the books, love Fate based on reading it, would like to try it

...but would also try: just about anything, once

I live in: Prescott Valley, Arizona (a far superior place to the blazing pit of Hades that is Phoenix)

2 or 3 well-known RPG products other people made that I like:
Psionics Expanded and Psionics Unleashed by Dreamscarred Press - the absolute best psionics stuff for Pathfinder
The West End Games version of Paranoia - sometimes you just have to kill all the players while laughing maniacally
The Adept's Way supplement for Earthdawn - an awesome book of classes written by members of those classes, a great style of writing that's more useful than the typical story blobs (I'm looking at you White Wolf)

2 or 3 novels I like:  The Mistborn trilogy (actually 4 books now) by Brandon Sanderson, The Obsidian trilogy by Mercedes Lackey and Larry Dixon, The Daylight War series by Peter V Brett (yeah, I'm cheating and putting series instead of books, but I read too much)

2 or 3 movies I like:  Serenity, Excalibur, Momento (and does that mix not tell you how crazy I am?)

Best place to find me on-line: my blog, I'm a Facebook lurker and would try Google+ if I had a steady internet connection (well, that and somebody to talk to :)

I will read almost anything on tabletop RPGs if it's:  about hacking or house-ruling a system, I'm a born tinkerer

I really do not want to hear about:  honestly, I'm flexible, I don't care what people rant about, I'll just forget it if it isn't important or useful :)

I think dead orc babies are ( circle one: funny / problematic / ....well, ok, it's complicated because....)  any of the above depending on the game, though I tend to be on the dramatic side (curse you evil adventurers...)

Game I'm in are like: http://www.kodtweb.com/comics/2013-11-07-v3_p33.jpg

Free RPG Content I made for Pathfinder is available here:
Pathfinder Feats by category and level-
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B7TR7SbGiuQbVVNHMVJoUkJFZGM/edit?usp=sharing
Pathfinder feats by category, first level only-
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B7TR7SbGiuQbN2I5QVh0TTR3SG8/edit?usp=sharing

The End Of Windows XP

    As we come into this holiday shopping season, there is something worth considering about next year.  On April 8th of 2014 Microsoft will stop all support for Windows XP.  What does that mean?  Well, it means no more security updates.  It means that the bad guys will have an even easier time infecting every Windows XP computer with viruses.  It is, bluntly, A Bad Thing.  If you have a Windows XP computer, which I wouldn't be surprised since it was a very good operating system, you really need to think about upgrading soon.
    The thing is, most criminals and virus writers don't really care about your computer.  Oh, don't get me wrong, they'd be happy to steal your bank account information and your credit cards and wring you dry.  But the biggest thing they do is infect your computer to make it attack someone else's computer.  When you get a virus, it is quite possible that you are helping to spread the pain and misery to other people.  You become, unwillingly, an accomplice to the crimes of the virus writers.  Security is a never-ending race.  Both sides look for every mistake in programming they can find, and bad guys exploit them while good guys fix them, both as fast as they can.  But when Microsoft gives up, when they drop support, so will everyone else.  Your antivirus program will also drop support, maybe a month or two later, but they will - they did when Windows 98 was dropped.  Without support, you are standing still in the great race, and you have no chance - except to hope the bad guys don't notice you, which in the always-connected internet age is kind of hard.
    Windows Vista users are a little better, support for Vista goes to 2017 - but even that is not as far down the line as it seems, four years can pass quickly.
    So, my point is, if you have a Windows XP computer, or even a Vista one frankly, it is worth looking at all the holiday deals and seeing about getting a new computer with Windows 8.  Now, I'll be brutally honest, Windows 8 is a stupid design that frustrates as much as anything else.  It seems like Microsoft can only design a good operating system on every other try, and this wasn't one of the good ones.  But it is safer, and it is supported, will be for quite some time to come.  If you can find Windows 7 it was one of the good ones.  If you want to jump off the Windows train, a sensible choice, Apple makes some great computers - they just cost a bit more.  Or, you could even take the plunge and try Linux, the Ubuntu operating system is pretty easy to pick up if you've used Windows, though it will require you to be willing to do some work and learn more about how to use it.
    What option works best for you I can't say, but as a computer guy I feel like I should start sounding the warning now to get people thinking about it.  There are more than enough bad guys doing bad things, we don't need to help them by using insecure operating systems.  That's your public service announcement for the day :)

The Homeless Nerd Reviews: Thor: The Dark World

At a glance- superhero action [this Thor is more superhero than god], otherworldly special effects, some good comedic moments

What is it?  Thor and Captain America were two Marvel heroes who I did not think would do well on the big screen (and have not in the past).  Thankfully, I was wrong and both turned into excellent movies.  Now, we need to see if Marvel can bring the magic again in the sequels to both characters.  We'll have to wait until next April for Captain America: The Winter Soldier, but Thor: The Dark World opened today (or, well, really last night).  Once again we have the Nordic deity-turned-superhero ("There's no difference between us and humans... Except 5,000 years or so" as Thor and Loki banter in the movie) with his long-distance romance of an Earth woman, and of course evil threats from beyond time and space.  One of the things I like about Thor is how it is the vast series in the Marvel universe, it takes place across different planets and the furthest reaches of the galaxy.  That is a good epic backdrop for the scope that comic books have always had, but comic movies have lacked.  And heck, the special effects do look great.  This is where I'd usually comment on differences between the comics and the movies, but Thor was never really a favorite character of mine, so I honestly don't know his comic history very well.

The acting- We have a lot of actors reprising their roles.  Chris Hemsworth is Thor, and does a great job of not just the look, but the almost Hamlet-like brooding and semi-archaic speaking.  I think he has been great in the role.  Also great is Tom Hiddleston as Loki, back again to wreak havoc and illusion.  He has also managed to hit just the right note of multiple-personality disorder for the deity of chaos.  Natalie Portman is Dr. Jane Foster, and while she has a bit of the 'damsel in distress' in this movie, she also does a decent job of being the 'save the day scientist.'  She is watchable, but I really wish her character was defined a bit better than 'scientist love interest,' which is the fault of the writers, not her acting.  Anthony Hopkins is Odin, and Rene Russo his wife Frigga.  I do like that she has a cool scene in the film, though also a sad one.  Stealing the show to me are Idris Elba as Himedall, who may not have much screen time but manages to look awesome during every second of it.  And Stellan Skarsgård as Dr. Selvig, not quite right in the head from his last run-in with Loki in The Avengers, also makes his limited time seem like more than it is.  New to the movie is Christopher Eccleston as our main bad guy (bad elf?), Malekith.  He is okay, the role is a slightly over-the-top villain, but not particularly memorable (again though, more the fault of writing than acting).

The story- There's a short into explaining that before there was light in the universe there were the Dark Elves (who must have stumbled around a lot) and they had an evil super-weapon the Aether.  They tried to destroy the galaxy of light to make it dark again (why didn't they prevent it in the first place, don't know) but were stopped by the Asgarians (Odin's father in particular).  But of course the evil super-weapon couldn't be destroyed (they never can) so it was hidden where no one would ever find it again (which is about 20 minutes into the movie).  Cut to the present where our love interest Dr. Foster is trying to go on a date and forget about Thor, who apparently never calls and never writes.  While she is investigating The Convergence, a time when all 9 planets/ galaxies/ somethings line up (which is always a bad time, never like a time of great happiness or merriment or anything) Thor is off policing the realms with his trusty sidekicks.  She stumbles across the evil super-weapon, he takes her home to meet mother in Asgard, and the evil bad guys wreak havoc, forcing Thor and Loki to team up, and ending with the final battle in London (nice to go across the pond since Avengers was in New York, still waiting to go to Canada for Alpha Flight though).
    There is a lot of special effects, and they look great, of course (a small city's worth of animators will do that).  The music was also nice, I thought it complimented the movie well (go London Philharmonic Orchestra).  There is plenty of banter and some good one-liners, to break up the action.  Not too many slow spots, it seems to move at a decent pace - for being almost 2 hours it didn't really feel like it.  My only complaints would be that the evil Dark Elves don't really look that evil, they look like deranged Kabuki theater performers.  And if the Asgardians have high tech like guns, why the heck do they attack everything with a sword and shield?  That's just stupid.  The mix of techno-fantasy doesn't always feel quite right, it might have been better had they picked one or the other.  Still, for a few flaws it works well and is very entertaining.
    This movie, being Marvel, has a clip after the credits, and like The Avengers it has two.  Once the movie ends there is a short animated credits sequence, then a clip that sets up the future story (points if you actually know what character appears, and I was surprised at the actor), then there is the long text credits, and finally a really short but cute scene.  So plan on sitting and chatting for a while after the movie itself.  One thing I hated when I was working at the movie theater was how people would wait for something at the end of the credits when for almost all movies there isn't anything - it made us late to start cleaning.

My recommendation- worth full price (though don't unless you have to), even if you didn't see the last one odds are you'll get this easily; if you've liked any of the Marvel movies so far, this is just as good as the others.

The Homeless Nerd Reviews: Ender's Game

At a glance- science-fiction children go to war against aliens

What is it?   Based on the novel of the same name by Orson Scott Card, Ender's Game is set in the future after an alien attack by the Formic (called the 'buggers' in the novel).  Earth is set to counter-attack the aliens, but needs a new breed of commanders, who start training as children.  This is a somewhat hard-SF novel, that is, it's based mostly on science and not thinly-veiled fantasy like Star Wars.  It is not really dystopian, but the future of the story is not a happy one.  And for being written in the 70s it has some fairly high-tech machinery like faster-than-light communication and Dr. Device, a cannon that disintegrates anything it hits.  This is a strange book/story, because while it is military SF, its protagonist is a kid.  Which may throw some people, who might not like it because "children don't think or act like that," but that's what drew me to the story.  As a kid I remember not liking most kids stuff, it was too stupid, it talked down to me.  I liked to read and watch the same things my parents did.  Transformers and GI Joe were entertaining, but you knew they were 'kids stuff' whereas Bugs Bunny was actually kind of smart and funny as well (only Bugs could do the 3 day epic Wagner opera in 8 minutes).  Ender is a kid who doesn't think or act like kid, which may make him more or less 'realistic' depending on your point of view about children.

The acting- Asa Butterfield as Ender Wiggin does a pretty good job.  His face manages to convey a good amount of emotion, which is vital since most of the story is really about what's going on in Ender's head.  My only complaint about him would be that he's too tall, a shorter actor would have conveyed Ender's underdog theme better visually.  Harrison Ford as Colonel Graf makes a strong appearance, which feels oddly out of balance if you've read the book.  In the book Graf only appears a few times, in the movie they kept all those times (and added a little), but dropped so much other stuff that Graf suddenly moves from background character to the forefront.  Jimmy 'Jax' Pinchak and Abigail Breslin as Peter and Valentine Wiggin have so little screen time that there's no point in rating their performances, another divergence from the book where they are just as important, in different ways, as Ender himself.  Ben Kingsley makes a strong showing as Mazor Rackham, with his Maori tattoos (sadly, only at the end of the story).  Nonso Anozie as Dap is actually the only character I liked better in the movie than in the book (book Dap is forgettable, movie Dap is cool).  Lastly all the other kids do a decent job for the little screen time they get, though Hailee Steinfeld as Petra has a much bigger role than in the book, and almost a teen-romance sub-plot that is totally different from the book, and almost (but not quite) works in the movie.

The story- When I heard that they were going to make The Hobbit into 3 movies of 3 hours each I thought to myself, "that's too long."  There just isn't enough material in the novel to support that many films.  On the opposite side, Ender's Game really, really, really should have been two movies.  If I had to give a one-word review of the movie it would be: rushed.  Everything just goes by too fast.  Ender is a Third, that is the third child of his parents, in a future when only two children are allowed to each family (presumably due to over-population, never really addressed a lot in the book).  After a devastating war with aliens, the planetary government is looking for commanders to lead the counter-attack against the aliens, on their own worlds instead of Earth.  Ender's brother Peter is brilliant, but vicious.  His sister Valentine is brilliant, but compassionate.  So the government allows Ender to be born, with a mix of empathy to read his opponents and determination to defeat them totally.  This is the core foundation of the whole story, and is totally neglected in the movie.
    Ender doesn't really want to be a soldier, but he is determined to protect his sister from the alien threat just as she protected him from the cruelty of their brother.  Again, not really used in the movie except for quick, passing glimpses.  Worst of all, Ender is constantly isolated- no one ever helps him, he has to look after himself.  Sadly, in the movie he is almost always shown with others, he lacks the alone-ness that made him push himself to be the best soldier, and later becomes one of the burdens of being a commander.  He goes to Battle School, a space station that puts kids in armies fighting in a zero-gravity game.  There he manages to outwit the bullies, become the top soldier, then create his own army, and become the top commander.  Which, in the movie, is about 5 scenes.  We hear how brilliant he is, and get to see him lead a whopping total of one battle.  Really?  Anybody can win once, Ender's power was that he always won, he was undefeated.  He starts as a misfit, not well liked by the other kids in both book and movie.  In the book he subtly and cleaverly manipulates the bully to break up trouble before it really starts.  In the movie he is belligerent towards his teachers once, and then all the kids magically love him.
    I know I'm doing a lot of talking about the book for a movie review, but I feel it's necessary not just because the movie is based on a book, but because it says a lot about the approach of books and movies, and the kinds of stories you can tell with each.  The unlimited imagination you bring to a book means that a story can literally put you inside the head of a character, seeing the world through their eyes and feeling their feelings.  But a movie, being visual, has to keep you at arm's length, outside and watching as events unfold.  I don't know why Hollywood hates the voice-over, which at least provides a little insight into a character while the action is happening.  Some of it is used here, as Ender narrating emails to his sister, but not enough.  This is a story about the inner development of a child into a man, burdened with the responsibilities of his intellect and actions and the society and people that use him - all internal stuff, which does not play well in an external film.  There are ways to do it, look at Momento, which for all the complexity of its storytelling manages to really put you in the disjointed world of its main character.  Sadly Ender's Game doesn't hit that strong note, and things just flash by without any proper build up for the pay off, and a lot of very good sub-plots that support the main story got cut out.
    So is this just another forgettable special effects extravaganza?  No, it's not that bad.  It has some emotion, some passion.  It looks great, the Battle Room is perfect, absolutely perfect (and then the final Command School setup is over-done, can't have everything I guess).  It's a little different from most science-fiction movies, which is a good thing.

My recommendation- if you like military- or science-fiction then catch the cheap show, and if you even liked just a tiny bit of it go get the book, it won several top awards for a reason.  Also, after you read the book of Ender's Game, read Ender's Shadow, which provides a wonderful re-telling of the main story from a different point of view.