Review: Escape Plan (Raja Uda, Butterworth)

Previously, I reviewed an Escape Room establishment called Break the Code in Jalan Burmah, Penang. This time, my friends invited me to try a new one called Escape Plan in Butterworth. The game is generally similar. You are locked in a room with puzzles inside, solve them in 1 hour to escape and win the game. Simple! Here is my review of Escape Plan.

My first impression I had when I entered the place was that it looked cheap. There was not much decoration, the entrance was a simple wooden door, the walls were painted bland white illuminated by bland fluorescent light. It felt like I stepped into an office lot. However, the staff were very friendly and eased us into starting our game.

We picked the hardest room called "The Abandoned" to play. Before the game starts, the staff tells us a tale of an aborted child who haunts the hospital. When the aborted child's parents returned to the same hospital to deliver their next child, they were trapped by the vengeful unborn spirit. We are to be trapped in the very same hospital and must figure out the clues left by the child ghost to escape. Scary! Then, we were sent into the room, and the clock starts.

Mom, Dad, why don't you love me? WHY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The room looks er.... cheap (I hate using the same adjective twice in a post but it is the best word to describe). The plain white walls which were occasionally splattered with red bloody message, the simple furniture, and the bland cement floor certainly did not add to the eeriness of the theme. I did not feel like I was in a hospital at all. However, it was enough for the puzzles to work.

The puzzles were on the plus side were very well done. For those of you who are not familiar with my critique of Escape Room puzzles in a previous post, puzzles that have no relation to the story and exist only because the designers wanted the players to solve a puzzle is bad. Although this room has a fair share them, some of the puzzles actually contributed to the room's story and it made the room feel real.

The creative usage of electronics in some of the puzzles was praiseworthy too and it's a breath of fresh air compared to the ole find the number and unlock the padlock puzzles.

The puzzles were good, I felt really satisfied finishing them all

Final Verdict: The game was fun. But at RM30 something per person for 1 hour, it might not be worthwhile for some. With better decorations, this place can be a really solid place to have fun. Fun rating, I'll give it a 3/5

Would I Recommend? If you never played Escape Rooms before, this one is decent and you should definitely go try it out. But I am not sure if it was good enough to warrant a second visit.

Dungeons and Dragons: Jade Regent (Part 1)

For an introduction of the characters and the adventure, check out this post.

This time. Ux and party is go magic island is for Akemi ta getz tha blessing spirits of ol ded emprahz. The island iz protekted wit good magikz so Ded Wun can't come. He sez he has allergiz or sumfing. To go island, Ux, Invisi-gurl, Kaboom Shoota, an Akemi ridez on Mista Gigoro's ship.

The island iz fulla stony slabz wit scribblez. We go into small house with evan bigga slabz. Akemi kneelz an sprikelz holi watar on the slabz. Then a ol lady appearz and sez she kno where find Emprah's tombz we follows but tha lady then dissapearz all sneaky-like. All hags are leik dis. Da evil ghosties then appearz an go into Invisi-gurl an Kaboom Shoota's body. Ux and Akemi saves them!

Now we is lost. Akemi playz magic plucky music to know fings. She then pointz da way. We see ghosty fings blocking da way. Ux wan smash them all but Invisi-gurl has sneaky plan!

 Problemz no more! (Chan Sing: To understand what is that gem, read my post for Tomb of Horrors. Not yet out)

Nex part is Ux's favoritz, there are big monstas for Ux to kill! But no get to smash much. Kaboom-shoota's splosive twanks killz them fast with flashy finish.

Ux sad....

Then we locatz da ol ded emprah's shrine. There we meets Akemi's ol ded kin. She very nice to Ux. Ux leik all fings that gives Ux da healz. She sez she will give her house blessing to Akemi if we kills her other evil kin. Ux acceptz mission, Ux liek kill fings for people that is nice to Ux.

Then we meetz da last emprah. The ex-emprah is all ghosty an transparant-ish. He sez he left da throne coz his advisa da jade regent trikz him into finking he iz gonna die coz people are tryin ta sneaky stab im. And he lost his 'ead for sum reason. He too will bless Akemi if we can recover his 'ead and his body. Ta gets the otha klanz blessings is arda coz sumfing evil is stoppin otha gud ex-emprah spirits from konnecting to island. We needs to kills da evil fings happening on da island. But the evil kin, missin ead, n the evil fings are all inside the ole of hell on this island.

We leave Akemi wit the ole emprah coz the hell ole is guarded by magik gate that stopz good fings frum going out. Invisi-gurl an Kaboom shoota are not good so there is no problemz. Ux is nuteral too koz Ux too dumb to understand gud n bad. We reachz da hell ole on magik horsies konjured by Invisi-gurl. We ride into da hole and have to fight slime demons! the smile deamons can tellyporta and their attackz clogs Ux's breathing oles! We escapes and found another ole emeprah. He says he is the first emprah of Waaa an the deamons that attack us are all his! Invisi-gurl done made that emprah more nica to us tho.

Invisi-gurl's boob sorcery did not works well on dis emprah

The ex-emprah sez he is willing to call off the deamons. Then Ded Wun appears! He sez the hell ole negates his allergiz. The ex-emprah says he has no the ead and the evil kin but he shows us the way coz he also wuns them ded. So we goes into that direksion an found the evil kin with tentacle magiks. (Ux heard tentacles iz all da craze in Waaa.) Ux almost gets Ux's oles violated but Ded Wun with his powah beating stik done right smash em all ded.

But before dyin, the evil kins sez "ito sent u right?" afta that she dies. Ux go back to first emprah an ask who is Ito. He sez it is a nekro-magikman called Ito Sojinawa. He lives in da deepa levelz of hell and very dangerous and likely da man who done all evil fings stoppin the good spirits konneckting to island. So we travels into deepa hell. 

Inside deepa hell, it is a cave lotsa watar wit beaches on the edge. We found a boat that stops on one of the beaches. So move until we see 2 fings. they says he will only gives us wot we want if we give bitz of our souls. Ux dunno wot soul is but Ux dun leik is tone so Ux began charging to poke them ded. But Ux got sucks into magik rock! But it only for short moment coz Ux explodes out of tha gem. (Chan Sing: The only reason Ux manages to escape out of the gem is because Ux is unwittingly carrying the spirit of an evil cleric. The gem overloads if it has to suck in more than 1 soul. More on that in my post on Mel. Not out yet.)

Now Ux is free, Ux done right poke one ded an Ded Wun smash anotha one ded. Then Ux go finds Ito, before that Ux gets to fight da Bony Champion and smash em ded. Then Ux blinks on top a giant bat an stabby the bat to death. Ux found the ex-emprah's missin ead n body. Ux rush to getz da head but then anotha dead-bony ghosty man appears outa now where. Talk is very short.

 

He sed it and its gud enuf for Ux

So ghosty bad man is ded... again... Ux sad coz no has magik treasure coz ghost got no items Ux can hold. So we found ead n body, kill evil kin, stop evil fings in hell. Time to go see Akemi. The ex-emprah was happy to getz body n ead back n ask if we kan kre-mat it.

 

Then da good ol emprah spirits can now come back to the islands. Akemi happy coz she gets the blessing of five royal clanz from the good spirits. Ux happy coz Ux gets experiance and money for arder eavy armour! So we left da island for next adventure.

Oh, we then go back a while to kill sneaky ol hag, then leave island for gud.

Why Do People Hate The Ultramarines

Before I go on, this is not a hate post where I rant about how Ultramarines suck. I am an Ultramarine player and I love my smurf army. However, over the course of time I got plenty of jeering and hate (playful in nature I must add) just because my army is blue and has a horse-shoe symbol. This post is more of an analysis based on my experience of why the Ultramarine hate.

Who are the Ultramarines?
They are one of the Space Marines chapters you can play as in Warhammer 40k. There is plenty of fluff surrounding this chapter. You can read more in this Lexicanum page. In summary, they are one of the original 20 Space Marine chapters founded by the God Emperor of Mankind. Their strength is their tactical expertise, leadership skills, and because they have an Empire within an Empire of their own, an unlimited supply of tactical marines to replace dead ones. Their greatest contribution the the Imiperium of Mankind is writing the Codex Astartes (debatable), securing the Imiperium after the Horus Heresy (debatable... kind of), and stopping an entire Tyranid Hive Fleet.

Hold the line! For everyone of us that falls, 10,000 of them must die!

Why do people hate the Ultramarines?

Well, for a few reasons really. Here is a list:

1) The fluff is bad (i.e. They have been Marty Stued)

I don't know how the fluff got bad. To me, everything started once Space Marine codex 5th edition came out, written by Matt Ward. This codex should really be called Codex: Ultramarines because so much of the pages was dedicated to detailing how awesome the Ultramarine is. In fact, if you wished to play other factions included in the codex (such as Salamanders, Imperial Fist and so on), you are forced to take a special character otherwise they had to play like Ultramarines because every Space Marines want to be like them. To understand why Matt Ward wrote the Ultramarines that way, well here is an interview with the man himself.

Even I puked a little when I read this

So there you have it. Ultramarines are the best of the best and others are inferior because the are not Ultramarines or do not follow the Codex Astartes. So as you probably figured out, no one likes it when their army is written to be "inferior" and begging to be more "superior" just because one man said so. And thus the hate towards Ultramarines began because they started to look like pompous fools. Although the fluff has been fixed in the 6th edition Codex: Space Marines saying that they are just "the oldest and most famous of them all", but the 7th edition rulebook still insist they are the "greatest of them all".

2) They are Games Workshop's favorites.

There is no denying it since Space Marines are clearly Games Workshops most marketed product.Think of any media outside tabletop games, you will definitely see a Space Marine. And when you see a Space Marine product (apart from Space Wolves, Dark Angels, and Blood Angels) the Ultramarines is always at the cover. So people might hate Ultramarines because either of the undeserved limelight or most beginners start with Ultramarines because it was the most marketed and people love bashing on newbies. Although things recently have changed because the 2 latest starter sets although still feature Space Marines, they feature Dark Angels and Space Wolves instead.

3) It is fashionable to hate the Ultramarines

This is especially true for junior players because they don't know why but the big boys do it so it must be cool. In fact, some deem Ultramarine hate a rite of passage. This fact even transcends to fluff writers too I heard. (Perhaps they are catering to the market?) Whatever the case, this does not bode well for my army.

So the fluff says they are "The Greatest", but are they "The Greatest" in-game?

No they are not, simple as that. Space Marines were designed to be the good guys, versatile, easy to play and forgiving when players make mistakes. In short, an ideal beginner's army. But there lies the problem, once you are starting to get familiar with the core rules, Space Marines have no particular strengths for you to exploit. Example, say you start with an Ork army, sure the stats are hard to remember and morale checks suck. But once you get the hang of it, figuring out a tactic for your Orks is easy, go into close combat fast. Say your opponent moves fast , then you can put your Orks on transports or bikes and go into close combat fast. Say your opponent has really powerful guns, then you can field more cheaper units in front, so your stronger Orks can go into close combat fast. If you are unsure what your opponent's strength is, go into close combat fast, you can hardly go wrong. However, if you are playing a versatile army, figuring out a tactic requires you to understand what is your opponent's strength and weakness so you can exploit their weakness and deny their strength. But, if you are like most casual players and do not have time to read every other faction's Codex, figuring a tactic for a versatile army can be hard. In short, they are not easy to win with if you are not skilled enough.

But if you want, you can just build your Space Marine army to be good in one thing, then you have a strength to exploit. Example say if you play Iron Hands, you could build your army with lots of tanks and techmarines so you can mow your opponent down from long range, or drop dreadnoughts into your enemy's line. To fully utilise Ultramarine's special rule, you need to make your already versatile army even more versatile with a good mix of tacticals, devastators, and assault marines. That makes them hard to play.

The Ultramarine special rule also requires you to know when to initiate the 3 doctrines. And for a beginner, knowing when to initiate is hard. Other Space Marine chapters have special rules that last throughout the game making them more beginner-friendly. In short, they are not even a particularly good beginner's army!

Then, why are people still playing Ultramarines?

I can only understand 4 types of people who will play Ultramarines.

1) Ultramarine Fan-boys

These people perhaps started 40k a long time ago with Ultramarines and have developed an attachment to it. So despite the hate, their sense of loyalty preserves them.

2) Trolls

The fluff says you are the greatest right? Well, just go to a game-club say you love Ultramarines and brag how your army are the greatest and purest of them all. Watch the others react in displeasure and delight because successful troll is successful.

3) Those who like a challenge

As I mentioned, Ultramarines are hard to win with. These people just like to make a supposedly weak army into a strong one because it is a glorious achivement to them.

4) Collectors

They'll play any army

Then why are you playing the Ultramarines?

I started playing Ultramarines during 5th edition because I liked the idea of Space Marines who are tactically inclined. I did not know there was so much hate going on at the time and when I do, I chose to ignore it. But once I joined a game club with plenty of older "fluff experts" I kept getting reminded of the bad fluff every time. Might as well troll them while I am playing Ultramarines I guess.

After all that being said, again all this is based on my experience so not all is accurate. And at the time this is written, 7th edition core rulebook just came out so circumstances might change in the future.

So, If you are playing an Ultramarine army, kudos to you because you clearly do not care what other people think. Just remember: