Two Words, One Answer.
Under Fire
 Under Fire: The Firefighters of Station Five $6.99 Zack Knight just ran into the most intriguing long-legged goddess. Too bad his mustang crumbled her back bumper. Cori Shannon is a sharp-tongued, mildly pissed-off exotic dancer who happens to have someone gunning for her. Her brassy, make-it-on-my-own plans and forward-thinking attitude are matched against our quiet, High IQ, Firefighter hero. And...he's a virgin. When Zack and the other `Firefighters of Station Five' rescue Cori from near death, she suddenly becomes the one mending hearts instead of breaking. She nurses Zack back to health when another bullet gets too close. Sexual tension and a romance doomed to failure kept this reader deep inside the book until the end. Even if someone has not read her first in the series, she has layered just enough description to give the reader a taste of another of the hot heroes of Station House Five.  Kingdom Under Fire: Circle of Doom $39.99 I normally play FPS games. This is the first RPG in my game collection. At first, I was stunned by the beautiful graphics. The game creators put a lot of work into visual details of the scenery. The next thing that struck me was the originality of the gameplay overall. I loved the concept of the "Idols" in each board. Each of the three idols has slightly different items for sale, each idol's appearance depends on the moon's phase. The idol alters are also where the character "sleeps" - slips into a haunting dream world where an old guru grants abilities, quests, and advice. This is the kind of originality that too many games are missing in today's market. I only have a couple of gripes about the game. One is the tediousness of grinding through the boards to accomplish quests. For example, in order to get a certain ability, you have to kill the "Forest Guardian" twice. BUT, to get to the Forest Guardian, you have to start at the beginning of the Forest realm, and grind your way through all the boards of that realm. Needless to say, it gets a little monotonous the second time around. I also thought the EQ purchasing could be greatly improved by limiting what a character can BUY, not just use. Certain characters are limited to certain EQ, fair enough. But, the limitations are in the written descriptions of the items. A character can spend a ton of gold on a killer weapon, only to find he/she can't use it because they failed to read ALL of the item's description. It would be nice if the developers could either gray-out the items not available to certain characters, or create character-specific lists of weapons and armor.  UNDER FIRE $16.95 Goldsmiths masterful score combines several seemingly disparate elements: full orchestra, cutting-edge (at the time) synthesizers, guitar solos by the esteemed Pat Metheny, and pan pipes (actually commercial PVC piping cut to Goldsmiths specifications). The pan pipes for the indigenous peasant uprising were a bit of artistic license in that the instrument is actually native to the South American Andes, not Nicaragua. (When someone pointed this out to Goldsmith years later, he kidded, Yes, I know that, and where have you been all these years?) Although the record does leave off some notable cuessuch as the brief, low-key main title and the equivalent film version of Bajo Fuego, no masters could be located anywhere, not even in archival sound, to expand the album. (We hope collectors dont revoltha ha.) This release features the U.S. CD debut of Goldsmiths outstanding Under Fire soundtrack album so as to put this superlative work back into circulation at an affordable price. (Existing CDs from Warner Bros. Records in Japan and Germany fetch import prices at best.) The two-track 1/2 album masters have been newly mastered for this edition, and definitive liner notes are provided by Jeff Bond and Al Kaplan featuring archival interview comments by Goldsmith, new remarks by engineer Botnick, and a breakdown of all the film cues combined for the album tracks. Bajo Fuego 5:34 Sniper 3:25 House of Hammocks 3:12 Betrayal 4:17 19 de Julio 3:28 Rafael 2:35 A New Love 3:43 Sandino 3:36 Alexs Theme 3:38 Fall of Managua 2:27 Rafaels Theme 4:10 Nicaragua 4:14 |
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