You'd think that super-hero movie makers would have learned some lessons from Sam Raimi's Spider-Man 3. Specifically, you'd have hoped that they'd have learned not to throw too many villains into one movie - especially if you have to cover the origin of all of them. As I stated in my review of the first Amazing Spider-Man, it was too soon to reboot the Spider-Man movie franchise. After Spider-Man 3, that franchise could have used a new cast (Tobey Macguire was starting to look flabby in the Spider-Man tights), but a complete reboot was unnecessary and premature. Andrew Garfield could have filled Tobey's shoes as an older, more mature, confident Peter Parker without the need to reboot the franchise and retell the origin story.

The movie really bogs down after Peter stops fighting bad guys and starts looking for his parents. Didn't we already see this exact same stuff in the last movie?

The first movie felt completely unnecessary and just didn't look or feel right. This movie is at least brighter and more colorful. It isn't visually as dull and washed-out as the previous movie. Garfield continues to excel in the role of Spider-Man with witty chit-chat, and the costume looks absolutely brilliant! He still doesn't sell himself as Peter Parker though, and his voice sounded muffled in his mask at some times, but if you could understand Bane, then you can follow along with Spider-Man.

So while it looks and sounds good, Amazing Spider-Man 2 just falls completely apart in its narrative.

The penultimate entry in my series of strategy posts about Brave New World's new civilizations will focus on the very unique civilization of Venice: the playable City-State.

The city of Venice is one of the most architecturally astounding cities in the world. It is built on top of 118 small islands in the marshy Venetian lagoon. These natural and artificial islands are separated by a network of canals that run through the city and act almost like a network of roads. Many of the buildings and paved surface roads and walkways are built on top of stilts that emerge from these shallow canals and the city contains over 400 bridges. Historically, most of Venice's traffic has been through the waterways (via gondole) or on foot, but the modern city does have a contemporary road network (although a very compact one) intended for automobiles. Due to its unique environment and construction, the city is an astounding work of engineering art in and of itself.

There are no surviving historical records depicting the founding of Venice, but historians believe that the islands were originally settled by refugees from Roman cities during the Germanic and Hunnic invasions between 400 and 600 C.E. Venice began to expand its international influence prior to the thirteenth century by battling pirates that were plaguing trade in the Adriatic and Mediterranean. The city-state began to become an influential economic force in the region due to its position as a hub for trade between Europe and the Middle East, and Venice non-violently acquired control over many islands of the Aegean, including Cyprus and Crete. Failed military actions and the devastation of the black plague in the fifteenth century lead to the decline of the Venetian empire, and Venice was eventually conquered by Napoleon, then surrendered to Austria in the terms of a peace treaty, then conquered again by Italy during its war of independence. Fortunately, Venice was spared from attack during World War II, and so much of its historical architecture has remained intact, making it a popular tourist destination today.

The 42nd Doge of Venice, Enrico Dandolo is known mostly for his blindness. There are conflicting stories regarding how Dandolo became blind. The decreasing legibility of his signature between 1174 and 1176 implies that he became blind gradually, possibly due to an injury sustained in Constantinople. He was also a very pious leader who provided invaluable assistance to the knights of the Fourth Crusade and played an integral part in the eventual sacking of Constantinople. Despite his blindness, Dandolo survived into extreme old age, being almost a hundred years old (by some estimates) at the time of his death in 1205. He was buried in the Hagia Sophia in Constantinople, but his original tomb was destroyed by the Ottomans when they captured Constantinople (renamed it Istanbul) and converted the Hagia Sophia into a mosque.

Venice was a City-State in Gods & Kings but was promoted to a full civilization for Brave New World. Venice doesn't expand like a traditional civ in Brave New World; instead, it buys control of fellow City-States or expands its influence via conquest, both of which are funded by its excessive trade routes.

One of the reasons that I started my blog was because I had submitted some amateur reviews to the administrator of a start-up gaming website called GameObserver.com. They showed an interest in my opinions, and encouraged me to put them out there for everyone to see. Shortly after submitting a few reviews to their site, and with the encouragement and support from Chichian, I started up this blog so that I could share opinions about things that I felt were important or interesting. So in many ways, I have the administrators of GameObserver to thank for this blog and for all the fulfillment that it has brought me. And if you've enjoyed any of my posts, then you also have GameObserver to thank.

Unfortunately, the administrators of GameObserver seem to have abandoned the site, as it has not been updated for several years, and I have fallen out of contact with them. Now it seems that the site has either been hacked or the domain has expired and fallen into the hands of malware distributors. I have thus removed all links to GameObserver from my blog posts in an attempt to ensure the security of my readers. I hope that I managed to catch this before any of my readers suffered from malware infections due to links that I posted on any articles.

If anybody finds any posts that still have links to GameObserver, please notify me through the comments on this post so that I can remove said link. The last thing I want is for any of my readers' machines to become infected with malware.

Thanks for stopping by. I hope you'll come back again soon!