Steam has been throwing one hell of a Christmas sale, with some games up to 80% off. This has given me the chance to play some games that I wouldn't have bought and others I wouldn't even pirate (if I did pirate games, which I don't).
I avoided console ports and games that were not a negligible money and after browsing the deals for some time I ended up with:
-Braid
-World of Goo
-Indigo Prophecy
-Mirror's Edge
-Painkiller
-Eufloria
-Beyond Good and Evil
-Torchlight
In normal circumstances none of these games would have been worth my money but the considerable discounts and my pay arriving hours earlier together overwhelmed my stinginess.
Let's take a look at these choices:
Braid was an immensely popular game with clever puzzles and a surreal atmosphere. To my ears that means over-hyped and pretentious. The gameplay consists of puzzle platforming with time manipulation, with goes from ingeniously challenging to fiendishly frustrating.
World of Goo is an indie puzzle game that I've actually finished before, when a friend bought it. My logic for buying was that if I was going to support things like Braid and Mirror's Edge which I paid for because it was there, then I had to support something that deserved it.
Indigo Prophecy can be fairly accurately described as an interactive movie, as the gameplay mostly consists of simple actions to get you to the next cutscene. There are also intensive button mashing sequences whenever the makers wanted the player to feel the same level of stress as the character.
Mirror's Edge is some bastard hybrid between a platformer and a FPS. The gameplay consists of first person free running in first person. Yes I know I repeated myself but that was to emphasis the bizarreness of the design.
Painkiller is an oldschool FPS in that you shoot demons.....and that's about it. No hiding in cover, no gimmicky mechanics, just pointing weapons at targets and watching them die.
Eufloria is another little indie game (strangely it was also one of the most expensive) that plays similar to a free game on Kongregate. You control little seedlings as you head out and colonise meteors, so if you hadn't guessed this is not a game steeped in realism or logic.
I remember Zero Punctuation mentioning that Beyond Good and Evil is a game people should play, so why the hell not. I know even less about this one than I do about the others, to the point where I'm not sure what genre it is.
Finally there is Torchlight, a game that would be a clear Diablo ripoff if it hadn't been made by some of the people who worked on Diablo. It's so similar I'm actually curious to see what if anything is different.
That's just a very brief summary of these game. Some have finished downloading and I've played them to some extent while others remain unknown. After some more time I'll do a recap on each game.
But since I'll be going to Brisbane tomorrow, don't expect this anytime soon.
That also applies to the Silent Hill 3 conclusion or a GitS post.
Thursday, December 24, 2009
Friday, December 18, 2009
Untitled
I'm always at a lose of how to start and finish a post so let's just get straight to the middle.
Silent Hill 3 places you in control of Heather Mason, the adopted daughter of the the first game's protagonist. After the events of the SH1 Harry and Heather have done into hiding from the Order and what do you know, SH3 starts off with the Order finding where you are.
The early game consists of Heather trying to get home and escape the madness. When you finally do succeed the victory is short lived as you discover that Harry has been killed and where you thought would be sanctuary quite clearly isn't. The rest of the game has Heather on the offensive (sort of) as you track down Claudia, the current head of the Order, for revenge and to discover more about her own past. Oh and she is pregnant with God.
It was at this point that nostalgia made me go play some SH3, which quickly made me lose my patience and then my interest. That's why there is a 24 hour break between the above paragraphs and the below ones.....not that you'd have anyway of knowing that.
Back to the 'review'. Gameplay in SH3 is similar to 1 and 2, as well as the early Resident Evil games: motherfucking broken.
Heather handles awkwardly with two different control schemes. You can use 2-D mode where the directions match the camera which is great until the camera changes its position and you run straight off a pit. Alternatively you can use 3-D mode where up is forward and left and right steer Heather. This avoids the aforementioned camera confusion and makes sidestepping enemies easier but makes up for it by being sluggish and unintuitive.
It's not just movement that is bad; the combat is just as awful. Melee attacks and evasion are fairly poor but the shooting takes the cake and then promptly drops it. You can't aim to save your life which is a shame as that's what you are trying to do. The best you can hope for is that enemies come directly at you and let auto aim do the rest. While playing yesterday this became abundantly clear: I was using the unlockable infinite ammo submachine gun and was still having difficultly hitting my targets.
Now it can be claimed that this is a story justification because, as Yahtzee says, the first four playable characters are "a writer, a clerk, a teenage girl, and a twat." Also, one of the main ideas with survival horror is that combat is often undesirable and unwise. It's just that these things should be displayed by making the enemies tougher or something, not by forcing the player to be in control of an invalid.
The camera deserves more criticism than it has already received. As well as the camera-control interaction it also screws with the player in the traditional way: by just not being where you ever want it to be. It can move on its own or with your input so there's not many of the Resident Evil artistic-and-atmospheric-but-ultimately-unhelpful camera angles. But that doesn't stop it from causing you grief. The most frequent problem for was that I would enter a room, have the camera be facing right at me, and here the telltale sounds of monsters. I'd then have to guess as to whether I had enough time to walk forward and get the camera back behind me, or if I should just enter combat stance and start swinging away.
AS I've already said SH3 is survival horror, which in layman's terms means that the game consists of difficult combat and lots of item hunting. Now I like the idea of a game where you do not want to just massacre every critter that crosses your path, where you have to evaluate whether each enemy is worth the health and ammo loss required to defeat it.
SH3 (and I assume others games in the series too) make this idea as unappealing as possible for me. Some of this ire is due to the controls and some is no doubt due to my own bad playing but that still leaves some blame squarely for the game's design.
A lot of my problems with the design comes from the areas' layout. There are red herring rooms with only a monster or two inside; you've got no reason to enter but you won't know that until you already have. Connecting hallways also often have enemies that you can just avoid as you pass through but between the camera, the controls and the lack of space you will cop a blow. Then you find an item and realise that you have to back track through the entire area again, which makes not killing some of the monsters kind of annoying. And while it is technically possible to sneak past enemies with your flashlight off, you can't see anything because like all horror in existence, IT'S TOO FUCKING DARK TO SEE ANYTHING.
Much of my griping about this design comes from my dislike towards games whose difficultly stems from lack of knowledge, and which therefore becomes noticeably easier on later playthroughs. I've touched on this before and I know that this issue isn't completely avoidable in game design. Nevertheless it still annoys me.
When much of the game's difficultly depends on the player not knowing what to do it seems like the wrong kind of challenge. Sure you can just memorise the most profitable course of action but it is not like you yourself have gotten any better. Just like games reliant of luck-based challenges, this sort of design robs the player of a sense of victory.
At this point of kind of blown my load as for as criticism goes, and I've still got stuff to talk about; design, plot, characters, themes, minor stuff really.
So in true Tangential Thinking style: to be continued.
Silent Hill 3 places you in control of Heather Mason, the adopted daughter of the the first game's protagonist. After the events of the SH1 Harry and Heather have done into hiding from the Order and what do you know, SH3 starts off with the Order finding where you are.
The early game consists of Heather trying to get home and escape the madness. When you finally do succeed the victory is short lived as you discover that Harry has been killed and where you thought would be sanctuary quite clearly isn't. The rest of the game has Heather on the offensive (sort of) as you track down Claudia, the current head of the Order, for revenge and to discover more about her own past. Oh and she is pregnant with God.
It was at this point that nostalgia made me go play some SH3, which quickly made me lose my patience and then my interest. That's why there is a 24 hour break between the above paragraphs and the below ones.....not that you'd have anyway of knowing that.
Back to the 'review'. Gameplay in SH3 is similar to 1 and 2, as well as the early Resident Evil games: motherfucking broken.
Heather handles awkwardly with two different control schemes. You can use 2-D mode where the directions match the camera which is great until the camera changes its position and you run straight off a pit. Alternatively you can use 3-D mode where up is forward and left and right steer Heather. This avoids the aforementioned camera confusion and makes sidestepping enemies easier but makes up for it by being sluggish and unintuitive.
It's not just movement that is bad; the combat is just as awful. Melee attacks and evasion are fairly poor but the shooting takes the cake and then promptly drops it. You can't aim to save your life which is a shame as that's what you are trying to do. The best you can hope for is that enemies come directly at you and let auto aim do the rest. While playing yesterday this became abundantly clear: I was using the unlockable infinite ammo submachine gun and was still having difficultly hitting my targets.
Now it can be claimed that this is a story justification because, as Yahtzee says, the first four playable characters are "a writer, a clerk, a teenage girl, and a twat." Also, one of the main ideas with survival horror is that combat is often undesirable and unwise. It's just that these things should be displayed by making the enemies tougher or something, not by forcing the player to be in control of an invalid.
The camera deserves more criticism than it has already received. As well as the camera-control interaction it also screws with the player in the traditional way: by just not being where you ever want it to be. It can move on its own or with your input so there's not many of the Resident Evil artistic-and-atmospheric-but-ultimately-unhelpful camera angles. But that doesn't stop it from causing you grief. The most frequent problem for was that I would enter a room, have the camera be facing right at me, and here the telltale sounds of monsters. I'd then have to guess as to whether I had enough time to walk forward and get the camera back behind me, or if I should just enter combat stance and start swinging away.
AS I've already said SH3 is survival horror, which in layman's terms means that the game consists of difficult combat and lots of item hunting. Now I like the idea of a game where you do not want to just massacre every critter that crosses your path, where you have to evaluate whether each enemy is worth the health and ammo loss required to defeat it.
SH3 (and I assume others games in the series too) make this idea as unappealing as possible for me. Some of this ire is due to the controls and some is no doubt due to my own bad playing but that still leaves some blame squarely for the game's design.
A lot of my problems with the design comes from the areas' layout. There are red herring rooms with only a monster or two inside; you've got no reason to enter but you won't know that until you already have. Connecting hallways also often have enemies that you can just avoid as you pass through but between the camera, the controls and the lack of space you will cop a blow. Then you find an item and realise that you have to back track through the entire area again, which makes not killing some of the monsters kind of annoying. And while it is technically possible to sneak past enemies with your flashlight off, you can't see anything because like all horror in existence, IT'S TOO FUCKING DARK TO SEE ANYTHING.
Much of my griping about this design comes from my dislike towards games whose difficultly stems from lack of knowledge, and which therefore becomes noticeably easier on later playthroughs. I've touched on this before and I know that this issue isn't completely avoidable in game design. Nevertheless it still annoys me.
When much of the game's difficultly depends on the player not knowing what to do it seems like the wrong kind of challenge. Sure you can just memorise the most profitable course of action but it is not like you yourself have gotten any better. Just like games reliant of luck-based challenges, this sort of design robs the player of a sense of victory.
At this point of kind of blown my load as for as criticism goes, and I've still got stuff to talk about; design, plot, characters, themes, minor stuff really.
So in true Tangential Thinking style: to be continued.
Saturday, December 12, 2009
Not Featured: A Hill
Conceptually horror is one of my favourite genres. In practice I find myself constantly disappointed (woah big surprise). In the past I've discussed some of my opinions on horror, and in the future I probably will do a rather more definitive post on the topic, but tonight I want to talk about Silent Hill 3 (it's the only one I own).
If you haven't be following the saga here's a brief overview based off wikipedia and what various people have said.
Silent Hill (1) has Harry Mason looking for his daughter in the haunted town filled with monsters and cult members. If you've seen the movie then you will have some knowledge of the game as the movie is the same as the game in very broad strokes. As it was the first game in the series it gets exempt of any real judgement.
SH2 has James Sunderland come to the town after receiving a letter from his dead wife (warning spoilers preceding). This game is kind of like a side story as far as plot relevance goes as the cult is not present. It is also the fan favourite, dooming all following games to be looked down upon because they aren't Silent Hill 2.
SH3 is (will be eventually) the focus of the post so lets skip it for now.
SH4: The Room was initially an unrelated game before becoming part of the franchise as the gameplay clearly indicates. The story is about Walter Sullivan, an undead serial killer who is killing for a ritual, and Henry Townshend, a man trapped in his apartment and a target of Walter's.
SH: Origins is a prequel if you couldn't guess. You play as Travis Grady at the time of the initial Alessa incident. This was also the first game not by Team Silent. This caused much complaining because apparently only the Japanese are capable of horror.
SH Homecoming has Alex Shepherd returning from military duty (or is he?[he's not]) to find out about an ancient child sacrificing pact to protect several towns from Silent Hill. By this point an astute reader will have noticed that by either design or coincidence every odd game has been Alessa/cult centred, and every even one has been a standalone side story.
Finally there's SH: Shattered Memories which is a continuity reboot, because like all long running series it has to divide the fanbase as much as possible. This is still quite new (not even in Australia yet) so all I've got to go on is my bias towards reboots when I was fond of the original (not to be confused with my bias towards originals when I'm fond of the reboot).
Just like all the previous times where I've gone to the effort of establishing some sort of context I guess it's time to end this post and pick it up another time. While I'm aware that it is kind of a dick move to not get around to what I said I would, I've also had enough for tonight so deal with it.
If you haven't be following the saga here's a brief overview based off wikipedia and what various people have said.
Silent Hill (1) has Harry Mason looking for his daughter in the haunted town filled with monsters and cult members. If you've seen the movie then you will have some knowledge of the game as the movie is the same as the game in very broad strokes. As it was the first game in the series it gets exempt of any real judgement.
SH2 has James Sunderland come to the town after receiving a letter from his dead wife (warning spoilers preceding). This game is kind of like a side story as far as plot relevance goes as the cult is not present. It is also the fan favourite, dooming all following games to be looked down upon because they aren't Silent Hill 2.
SH3 is (will be eventually) the focus of the post so lets skip it for now.
SH4: The Room was initially an unrelated game before becoming part of the franchise as the gameplay clearly indicates. The story is about Walter Sullivan, an undead serial killer who is killing for a ritual, and Henry Townshend, a man trapped in his apartment and a target of Walter's.
SH: Origins is a prequel if you couldn't guess. You play as Travis Grady at the time of the initial Alessa incident. This was also the first game not by Team Silent. This caused much complaining because apparently only the Japanese are capable of horror.
SH Homecoming has Alex Shepherd returning from military duty (or is he?[he's not]) to find out about an ancient child sacrificing pact to protect several towns from Silent Hill. By this point an astute reader will have noticed that by either design or coincidence every odd game has been Alessa/cult centred, and every even one has been a standalone side story.
Finally there's SH: Shattered Memories which is a continuity reboot, because like all long running series it has to divide the fanbase as much as possible. This is still quite new (not even in Australia yet) so all I've got to go on is my bias towards reboots when I was fond of the original (not to be confused with my bias towards originals when I'm fond of the reboot).Just like all the previous times where I've gone to the effort of establishing some sort of context I guess it's time to end this post and pick it up another time. While I'm aware that it is kind of a dick move to not get around to what I said I would, I've also had enough for tonight so deal with it.
Friday, December 11, 2009
Subversive Playing
Since I last posted I've gone through several more failed GitS drafts and I've come to the realisation that while I have plenty of opinions, I don't seem to have adequate way of stringing them together in a coherent shape.
I find myself able to word my views better when it's in a conversation with another person, where the other person can pick up the social slack when I falter. So when I'm faced with a blank white screen, hungry for text and order, my opinions seem to wither into vague musings and my inner critic looks down at what I type.
In conclusion, no GitS actual yet.
And now for tonight's entertainment.
As you may or may not know, the FPS Team Fortress 2 is a class based game. Periodically the developers, Valve, release an update for one of the nine classes, offering 3 new alternative weapons/items. This time Valve are updating both the Soldier and the Demoman at once, and naturally there's a twist.
Valve has just announced that either Soldier or Demoman (but not both) will get a 4th unlock. And how is it decided who gets this rare privilege? By pitting the two classes against one another. Until the end of week (I think) every time a Demoman kills a Soldier or a Soldier kills a Demoman it is recorded and which class has the most kills, wins.
Now this makes this pretty interesting. As well as giving people a new goal to work towards it also shakes up the maps themselves as players adapt their strategies to the new class ratios. I found myself being lured back into the game having been bored with it for several months.
In theory this event should lead to plenty of Soldiers on the attack, and plenty of Demomen on the defence. In theory.
Because everyone who has a preferred class wants it to win, people are having to come up with some fairly meta strategies. One has to decide when it is worth risking your class to take down the other because the last thing you want to do is feed the opposing class kills.
I found myself foregoing playing as a Soldier because of the sheer number of enemy Demomen. Instead I was playing as another Demoman, who just didn't kill any Soldiers, as I found it was more productive to the Soldier's cause to not play the class.
And any sort of situation that generates this sort of out-of-the-box thinking is alright by me.
I find myself able to word my views better when it's in a conversation with another person, where the other person can pick up the social slack when I falter. So when I'm faced with a blank white screen, hungry for text and order, my opinions seem to wither into vague musings and my inner critic looks down at what I type.
In conclusion, no GitS actual yet.
And now for tonight's entertainment.
As you may or may not know, the FPS Team Fortress 2 is a class based game. Periodically the developers, Valve, release an update for one of the nine classes, offering 3 new alternative weapons/items. This time Valve are updating both the Soldier and the Demoman at once, and naturally there's a twist.
Valve has just announced that either Soldier or Demoman (but not both) will get a 4th unlock. And how is it decided who gets this rare privilege? By pitting the two classes against one another. Until the end of week (I think) every time a Demoman kills a Soldier or a Soldier kills a Demoman it is recorded and which class has the most kills, wins.
Now this makes this pretty interesting. As well as giving people a new goal to work towards it also shakes up the maps themselves as players adapt their strategies to the new class ratios. I found myself being lured back into the game having been bored with it for several months.
In theory this event should lead to plenty of Soldiers on the attack, and plenty of Demomen on the defence. In theory.
Because everyone who has a preferred class wants it to win, people are having to come up with some fairly meta strategies. One has to decide when it is worth risking your class to take down the other because the last thing you want to do is feed the opposing class kills.
I found myself foregoing playing as a Soldier because of the sheer number of enemy Demomen. Instead I was playing as another Demoman, who just didn't kill any Soldiers, as I found it was more productive to the Soldier's cause to not play the class.
And any sort of situation that generates this sort of out-of-the-box thinking is alright by me.
Monday, December 7, 2009
Bump
Yesterday I decided that I should do a Ghost in the Shell week, with a post each night discussing a feature of the franchise as a whole. Since there wasn't a finished post from Sunday, one can conclude that this idea did not prove successful. Worse still, I started on the one topic that I thought I could talk about at length only to find that I said all that needed to be said with one paragraph.
Go team.
So GitS Week will never be. I will however endeavour to do a post or two summarising the major concepts I wished to praise and/or condemn. If I'm feeling adventurous I may even try to make it entertaining AND insightful, something I constantly struggle with.
Go team.
So GitS Week will never be. I will however endeavour to do a post or two summarising the major concepts I wished to praise and/or condemn. If I'm feeling adventurous I may even try to make it entertaining AND insightful, something I constantly struggle with.
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
Choice
My mother and I were looking over our Foxtel plan to see if there were any packages we could cut. It is a dilemma we have faced before. The few channels we watch are scattered over the various deals Telstra offers so we end up paying for several dozen channels we don't want.
Confused by some of the more esoteric titles for the packages I sought out the official website to see what they contained, only to find that all the deals had changed recently. Perhaps the new arrangement would prove beneficial and result in more bang for our buck?
Short answer: NO!
Long answer: The new packages manage to be even worse than the previous ones. After some brief number crunching I worked out that to keep all of our current channels would cost even more. Thankfully our plan will remain on the old deal as long as we don't modify it at all.
What I can't figure out is why we the consumer have to bugger around with these packages to begin with. Wouldn't a system were people just individually bought the channels they want be better for everyone? The viewers would get want they want and I'm sure that Telstra could come up with a pricing system where they don't lose money (hell they'd probably be able to squeeze more cash out of people than they already do).
Further more this system would clearly show which channels are the popular ones which I'm sure would be desirably news for those in charge of advertising.
Though I shouldn't be surprised by this current situation. I've always believed that the basis of all business is the rule that you should make it as easy as possible for consumers to give you money, and time and time again I've seen companies ignore this. The really infuriating thing is that somehow they are frequently successful.
Satire. Subtly not included.
Confused by some of the more esoteric titles for the packages I sought out the official website to see what they contained, only to find that all the deals had changed recently. Perhaps the new arrangement would prove beneficial and result in more bang for our buck?
Short answer: NO!
Long answer: The new packages manage to be even worse than the previous ones. After some brief number crunching I worked out that to keep all of our current channels would cost even more. Thankfully our plan will remain on the old deal as long as we don't modify it at all.
What I can't figure out is why we the consumer have to bugger around with these packages to begin with. Wouldn't a system were people just individually bought the channels they want be better for everyone? The viewers would get want they want and I'm sure that Telstra could come up with a pricing system where they don't lose money (hell they'd probably be able to squeeze more cash out of people than they already do).
Further more this system would clearly show which channels are the popular ones which I'm sure would be desirably news for those in charge of advertising.
Though I shouldn't be surprised by this current situation. I've always believed that the basis of all business is the rule that you should make it as easy as possible for consumers to give you money, and time and time again I've seen companies ignore this. The really infuriating thing is that somehow they are frequently successful.
Satire. Subtly not included.Thursday, November 26, 2009
Wherein I talk about the ending
Every night for the last week I've contemplated doing a post or two but then I get tracked by things that are you know, fun or worthwhile (okay I'm lying about that, nothing I do is worthwhile).
Part of the problem is that the times when I'm thinking about post ideas (eg while showering, while trying to fall asleep) are not times when I can easily do something about it.
In addition, while I am thinking up the myriad of posts I will not post, my ideas and concepts seem so very much more sensible and clear. Unlike my paragraphs which frequently change topic jarringly but rather flow from one to another like shining threads of thought (that imagery made so much sense in my head, on the screen it's just retarded).
A lot of this stems from the fact that although I think in complete sentences, I leave out all the detail and grammatical filler. Imagine a movie where all the subtle character development/interaction was omitted and you were left with all the dramatic gestures and profound statements. That's how I think; I don't need to be introduced and become attached to the characters/ideas, I already know everything there is to know and can cut to the chase.
On a side note, if people every develop psychic powers it will either revolutionise all fiction....or destroy it utterly.
Funny, what was meant to be a brief intro somehow turned into four paragraphs (although by now it shouldn't be surprising to me given the state of many previous posts). Anyway tonight I will be discussing the ending of Borderlands.
It goes without saying-
(think about)
The plot of Borderlands is a thin is it can get; if it was ice I would caution you not to walk on it. You play as a treasure hunter/mercenary who has just landed on the planet Pandora, a place that is post-apocalyptic in every way except for the actual apocalypse.
Upon arriving at some joke of a town (pop. 23) a mysterious looking woman talks to you in your head as a distorted image of her flickers in your vision. This is the 'guardian angel' and she urges you to search for the Vault (a rumoured treasure trove of alien tech). Throughout the game she points out where to head to next and politely but insistently tells you to hurry and find it before it opens.
Borderlands supports listening to inner voices
Naturally one assumes there's going to a reveal, twist and/or betrayal by the angel at some point. That's what all but the best and worst fiction in the world does. Further more, having played plenty of games I knew the Vault wasn't going to just be full of treasure and end in smiles and rainbows.
While wasting time on TV Tropes I accidentally came across some spoilers for Borderlands and although I tried to avoid reading it phrases along the lines of 'face full of tentacle rape' tend to attract attention.
From these partial spoilers I assumed that the angel was a small scale cosmic horror trapped in the Vault and trying to trick you into freeing it. Then I got up to the end. And was disappointed.
So what actually happened? Well the Vault turns out to be a portal from this emerges:
Yes we all know what it looks like, get your mind out of the gutter
The angel then informs me that the Destroyer is vulnerable in this world. I kill it, am informed that it's gone for another 200 years, and then the camera zooms out to reveal a satellite with the word angel on the side.
What's annoying is that at no point was there any indication that a god-like being from some other universe was going to come through a portal. I was expecting a twist or some craziness at the end, even before reading the spoiler but I was expecting there to be some foreshadowing and for it to involve previously introduced characters and elements.
Also the last boss was kind of a pushover.
There was one bit of foreshadowing. The planet was called Pandora and I was trying to open a Vault. That should have set off alarms in my head but instead I just assumed it was a case of a random mythological name being used cause it sounds cool. After all, I was playing as Lilith the Siren who specialised in going invisible and elemental attacks; I had good reason to think there wasn't any meaning present.
What I can't decide is if calling the planet Pandora was genius or unimaginative. Did they use the name because they couldn't come up with anything subtle or clever, or did they very sneakily double-bluff me and all the other gamers by making us think that they wouldn't do something so obvious.
And because there can never be enough mentally unbalanced characters played for laughs, here's Patricia Tannis who in my opinion stole the show.
I wouldn't have cared if the entire game had been shoot bandits whilst Tannis goes off on non-sequiturs. Hell I would have loved it.
Part of the problem is that the times when I'm thinking about post ideas (eg while showering, while trying to fall asleep) are not times when I can easily do something about it.
In addition, while I am thinking up the myriad of posts I will not post, my ideas and concepts seem so very much more sensible and clear. Unlike my paragraphs which frequently change topic jarringly but rather flow from one to another like shining threads of thought (that imagery made so much sense in my head, on the screen it's just retarded).
A lot of this stems from the fact that although I think in complete sentences, I leave out all the detail and grammatical filler. Imagine a movie where all the subtle character development/interaction was omitted and you were left with all the dramatic gestures and profound statements. That's how I think; I don't need to be introduced and become attached to the characters/ideas, I already know everything there is to know and can cut to the chase.
On a side note, if people every develop psychic powers it will either revolutionise all fiction....or destroy it utterly.
Funny, what was meant to be a brief intro somehow turned into four paragraphs (although by now it shouldn't be surprising to me given the state of many previous posts). Anyway tonight I will be discussing the ending of Borderlands.
It goes without saying-
(think about)
The plot of Borderlands is a thin is it can get; if it was ice I would caution you not to walk on it. You play as a treasure hunter/mercenary who has just landed on the planet Pandora, a place that is post-apocalyptic in every way except for the actual apocalypse.
Upon arriving at some joke of a town (pop. 23) a mysterious looking woman talks to you in your head as a distorted image of her flickers in your vision. This is the 'guardian angel' and she urges you to search for the Vault (a rumoured treasure trove of alien tech). Throughout the game she points out where to head to next and politely but insistently tells you to hurry and find it before it opens.
Borderlands supports listening to inner voicesNaturally one assumes there's going to a reveal, twist and/or betrayal by the angel at some point. That's what all but the best and worst fiction in the world does. Further more, having played plenty of games I knew the Vault wasn't going to just be full of treasure and end in smiles and rainbows.
While wasting time on TV Tropes I accidentally came across some spoilers for Borderlands and although I tried to avoid reading it phrases along the lines of 'face full of tentacle rape' tend to attract attention.
From these partial spoilers I assumed that the angel was a small scale cosmic horror trapped in the Vault and trying to trick you into freeing it. Then I got up to the end. And was disappointed.
So what actually happened? Well the Vault turns out to be a portal from this emerges:
Yes we all know what it looks like, get your mind out of the gutterThe angel then informs me that the Destroyer is vulnerable in this world. I kill it, am informed that it's gone for another 200 years, and then the camera zooms out to reveal a satellite with the word angel on the side.
What's annoying is that at no point was there any indication that a god-like being from some other universe was going to come through a portal. I was expecting a twist or some craziness at the end, even before reading the spoiler but I was expecting there to be some foreshadowing and for it to involve previously introduced characters and elements.
Also the last boss was kind of a pushover.
There was one bit of foreshadowing. The planet was called Pandora and I was trying to open a Vault. That should have set off alarms in my head but instead I just assumed it was a case of a random mythological name being used cause it sounds cool. After all, I was playing as Lilith the Siren who specialised in going invisible and elemental attacks; I had good reason to think there wasn't any meaning present.
What I can't decide is if calling the planet Pandora was genius or unimaginative. Did they use the name because they couldn't come up with anything subtle or clever, or did they very sneakily double-bluff me and all the other gamers by making us think that they wouldn't do something so obvious.
And because there can never be enough mentally unbalanced characters played for laughs, here's Patricia Tannis who in my opinion stole the show.
I wouldn't have cared if the entire game had been shoot bandits whilst Tannis goes off on non-sequiturs. Hell I would have loved it.Friday, November 20, 2009
Clip Show
Several months ago I finally got around to turning clips from my various DVD's into GIF's. It had been an intention of mine for quite some time.
Like usual the simple idea turned out to be a complex endeavour that consumed far too many hours. In the end I worked out a 4 program system to do it......and I also filled my computer with viruses. One stolen account and reformat later I decided to put off GIF making.
But Present Me scoffs at the silly precautions of Past Me and decided to try again (no malware detected yet which could just mean it's well hidden). And so now I've encountered another problem; a problem I have met before with Garry's Mod. I don't want to do anything I can do, and what I want to do I can't.
Theoretically I can make videos, GIFs or just take screenshots, and from these I could make all sorts of potentially funny videos and so forth. The internet is practically founded on humorous stuff made with copyrighted material (that and porn).
But in actuality making something halfway decent is a lot of hard work for very little reward. Look at this blog, the amount of time I invest in this is way more than the amount of enjoyment people (assuming this is read) get out of it (assuming they enjoy it).
So basically, I've once again risked my computer for the ability to do things I don't need to do.
P.S. Here are some awesome screenshots from FLCL:
Don't mind me, I'm just chilling out.
Even in context this shot is both brilliant and wrong.
Sanity? Who needs that when you have got a shotgun-guitar.
Like usual the simple idea turned out to be a complex endeavour that consumed far too many hours. In the end I worked out a 4 program system to do it......and I also filled my computer with viruses. One stolen account and reformat later I decided to put off GIF making.
But Present Me scoffs at the silly precautions of Past Me and decided to try again (no malware detected yet which could just mean it's well hidden). And so now I've encountered another problem; a problem I have met before with Garry's Mod. I don't want to do anything I can do, and what I want to do I can't.
Theoretically I can make videos, GIFs or just take screenshots, and from these I could make all sorts of potentially funny videos and so forth. The internet is practically founded on humorous stuff made with copyrighted material (that and porn).
But in actuality making something halfway decent is a lot of hard work for very little reward. Look at this blog, the amount of time I invest in this is way more than the amount of enjoyment people (assuming this is read) get out of it (assuming they enjoy it).
So basically, I've once again risked my computer for the ability to do things I don't need to do.
P.S. Here are some awesome screenshots from FLCL:
Don't mind me, I'm just chilling out.
Even in context this shot is both brilliant and wrong.
Sanity? Who needs that when you have got a shotgun-guitar.Sunday, November 15, 2009
Final Flawed
I wasted several hours this morning getting my ass handed to me repeatedly in Dissidia, so it seems like a good time to follow up on bad recurring elements of the Final Fantasy.
Unbalanced Enemies
Character customisation is a staple of a lot FF games and other RPG's. The more choices and depth the better right? Wrong.
Developers find themselves in a fix when they let their players have too much freedom as it becomes hard to design challenging enemies; what's challenging for a team of fast hitting melee characters will be different from a team of healers who slowly whittle down the enemy.
So what is the solution? If you answered make the enemies so hard that it doesn't matter what you do then not only are you correct but you are also a bastard.
This is most noticeable in the case of bosses. Since the player may have powerful status effects (petrify, death, confuse etc) many bosses are completely immune. Naturally the bosses will not hesitate to hit you with the same status effects, often several at once. This is by no means the only dirty trick; bosses frequently take free turns, use one hit kill moves, casually hit your entire party with AoE or possibly all of the above at once.
Examples? Pick any FF game. I'm sure that there will be at least one boss, if not more, that enters this definition.
If you do want to be specific in Dissidia computer opponents cheat newly constantly. They react faster than humanly possibly allowing them to block and dodge nearly perfectly. Further more they use abilities below the allowed level and they can equip items they outright aren't allowed to.
Unnecessarily Long Animations
I'm not going to on about long cutscenes as the actual gameplay provides enough fodder. Summons and ultimate attacks are present in most of the FF games. Unfortunately they normally come with a five to thirty second animation which may not be able to be skipped.
FF10's 2nd last boss fight has two magical stones which heal the boss. Both stones act at the same rate as a normal speed character and if you kill them they comes back several turns later. While the healing animation is only several seconds long it adds up to a considerable amount of time over the course of the brutal fight.
In FF7 there's a conjoined zombie monster or something. One half counters whenever you attack it. This counterattack takes the form of 7 or 8 seconds of seizures followed by an attack. Since this happens ever time you attack, this fight is dragged out for much longer than it should be.
Unbalanced Enemies
Character customisation is a staple of a lot FF games and other RPG's. The more choices and depth the better right? Wrong.
Developers find themselves in a fix when they let their players have too much freedom as it becomes hard to design challenging enemies; what's challenging for a team of fast hitting melee characters will be different from a team of healers who slowly whittle down the enemy.
So what is the solution? If you answered make the enemies so hard that it doesn't matter what you do then not only are you correct but you are also a bastard.
This is most noticeable in the case of bosses. Since the player may have powerful status effects (petrify, death, confuse etc) many bosses are completely immune. Naturally the bosses will not hesitate to hit you with the same status effects, often several at once. This is by no means the only dirty trick; bosses frequently take free turns, use one hit kill moves, casually hit your entire party with AoE or possibly all of the above at once.
Examples? Pick any FF game. I'm sure that there will be at least one boss, if not more, that enters this definition.
If you do want to be specific in Dissidia computer opponents cheat newly constantly. They react faster than humanly possibly allowing them to block and dodge nearly perfectly. Further more they use abilities below the allowed level and they can equip items they outright aren't allowed to.
Unnecessarily Long Animations
I'm not going to on about long cutscenes as the actual gameplay provides enough fodder. Summons and ultimate attacks are present in most of the FF games. Unfortunately they normally come with a five to thirty second animation which may not be able to be skipped.
FF10's 2nd last boss fight has two magical stones which heal the boss. Both stones act at the same rate as a normal speed character and if you kill them they comes back several turns later. While the healing animation is only several seconds long it adds up to a considerable amount of time over the course of the brutal fight.
In FF7 there's a conjoined zombie monster or something. One half counters whenever you attack it. This counterattack takes the form of 7 or 8 seconds of seizures followed by an attack. Since this happens ever time you attack, this fight is dragged out for much longer than it should be.
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Another Delay to Previously Promised Posts
Long ago in the depths of history I wrote at length about some of the things about L4D2 (summary: too soon). Having just minutes ago played the demo I'm going to voice my complaints about the more minor details.
Given that only the demo has been played and presumably Valve are still working on the game itself even now it can be assumed that several of the below issues will be worked out before release or soon after. In addition, people have also conjectured that the demo is using console standards (simplified graphics, gameplay etc) and/or has had features removed to minimise the size of the download.
This raises the debate of whether a free demo is supposed to be an accurate representation of a game or essentially an open beta test. But this is beside the point as this post is all about complaining about details that annoy me as if I was a person of relevance.
-You no longer can look down and see your feet. This probably seems fairly minor (and it is) but since the first game had this feature it's hard to come up with a reason to omit it.
-The gun's take up far too much of the screen. This is one of the things people are talking about as console elements (you sit further from a TV than from a computer screen hence bigger guns), and most likely will be fixed for computers at some point.
-The general gameplay and handling feels clunky and slow; it feels like an alpha version of L4D1. This could be another demo issue that will be fixed, or it could quite possibly be my imagination as I unconsciously try to find more flaws to validate my dislike for the game.
-I don't like the new music. For those who don't know particular music cues are used to indicate certain events such as tank attack, horde approaching, witch nearby. In the original the music was adequate, it wasn't the sort of music you'd ever sit down and just listen to but it got the job. In L4D2 the cues are.....different (festive, jovial, instrumental, I don't know enough to describe it well) and it creates the wrong atmosphere for me. They may as well be playing Yakety Sax.
-Another atmosphere destroyer is the time of day, at least for the levels present in the demo; It's a nice sunny day and the only noises are insects chirping. Now you could say that the peace and quiet juxtaposes the devastation and horror, but I say that it produces the wrong tone. Instead of feeling like a group of desperate survivors facing terrible odds I feel like a band of action heroes as they stroll through the ruins causally picking off the undead. Dark nights and stormy weather may be very clichéd but that's just because they create the sense of hostility very well.
-I'm not fond of the Jockey, one of the new special infected. The Spitter is similar to an idea of mine as I've said before, the Charger fills a role well enough, and the 'uncommon common' infected something I had been wanting since I first heard about L4D1. But the Jockey annoys me both visually and conceptually although I can see the gameplay reason for it. In game the Jockey jumps onto a Survivor and 'steers' them towards danger while the other Survivors try to knock it off. Conceptually it doesn't feel like a zombie and visually it is a short hunchbacked guy with no interesting features.
That's about all that comes to mind at the moment without having to go into the whole Australian censorship issue so I guess it's time to end abruptly.
Given that only the demo has been played and presumably Valve are still working on the game itself even now it can be assumed that several of the below issues will be worked out before release or soon after. In addition, people have also conjectured that the demo is using console standards (simplified graphics, gameplay etc) and/or has had features removed to minimise the size of the download.
This raises the debate of whether a free demo is supposed to be an accurate representation of a game or essentially an open beta test. But this is beside the point as this post is all about complaining about details that annoy me as if I was a person of relevance.
-You no longer can look down and see your feet. This probably seems fairly minor (and it is) but since the first game had this feature it's hard to come up with a reason to omit it.
-The gun's take up far too much of the screen. This is one of the things people are talking about as console elements (you sit further from a TV than from a computer screen hence bigger guns), and most likely will be fixed for computers at some point.
-The general gameplay and handling feels clunky and slow; it feels like an alpha version of L4D1. This could be another demo issue that will be fixed, or it could quite possibly be my imagination as I unconsciously try to find more flaws to validate my dislike for the game.
-I don't like the new music. For those who don't know particular music cues are used to indicate certain events such as tank attack, horde approaching, witch nearby. In the original the music was adequate, it wasn't the sort of music you'd ever sit down and just listen to but it got the job. In L4D2 the cues are.....different (festive, jovial, instrumental, I don't know enough to describe it well) and it creates the wrong atmosphere for me. They may as well be playing Yakety Sax.
-Another atmosphere destroyer is the time of day, at least for the levels present in the demo; It's a nice sunny day and the only noises are insects chirping. Now you could say that the peace and quiet juxtaposes the devastation and horror, but I say that it produces the wrong tone. Instead of feeling like a group of desperate survivors facing terrible odds I feel like a band of action heroes as they stroll through the ruins causally picking off the undead. Dark nights and stormy weather may be very clichéd but that's just because they create the sense of hostility very well.
-I'm not fond of the Jockey, one of the new special infected. The Spitter is similar to an idea of mine as I've said before, the Charger fills a role well enough, and the 'uncommon common' infected something I had been wanting since I first heard about L4D1. But the Jockey annoys me both visually and conceptually although I can see the gameplay reason for it. In game the Jockey jumps onto a Survivor and 'steers' them towards danger while the other Survivors try to knock it off. Conceptually it doesn't feel like a zombie and visually it is a short hunchbacked guy with no interesting features.
That's about all that comes to mind at the moment without having to go into the whole Australian censorship issue so I guess it's time to end abruptly.
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Wherein I talk about everything but the ending
It's like an art student's orgasm I finished Borderlands last night.
At first I was a little irked by how short it
So what did I think of the game?
The Good
Visually the game is brilliant. The cel shaded style supports the game's tone of black humour and causal murder, and helps distant it from people screaming about it being a Fallout ripoff (not enough though).
Much to my surprise I really enjoyed the loot. In most circumstances I don't see the appeal in paying much attention to your character's gear and whenever someone starts bragging about their virtual weapons I'm like 'whatever fag/noob/commie/humorously-irrelevant-demographic.'
But not in Borderlands. With a disregard for sensibility and a love of fun, the game contains hundreds guns that run on pure awesome such as the shotgun that fires rockets, acid shooting machine pistols, 5 missile burst launchers and revolvers that have shotgun-spray.
Patricia Tannis. There's always a place for well done crazy people.
The Bad
The gameplay, although fun, is repetitive, easy and linear.
The missions are all MMO staples like kill 10 rats, which are just tolerable in MMO's because you are working towards a long term goal in an existing community.
Dying is just a slap on the wrist with a percentage reduction of your cash. But this is okay as horribly punishing deaths would take away from the casual fun nature of the game. What isn't okay is that as you the player get stronger the enemies go from challenges to speedbumps. It's a design that allows people who aren't doing well from being unable to progress but it also means that people who are doing well get rewarded with...no challenges.
Linear probably isn't the best choice of words; the game is an open world to an extent. Closed, empty or futile could also describe the situation. Like many other open worlds there is nothing to do in apart plot and side missions so the world turns into a scenic timesink. The status quo never changes in any way that matters and the only choices you'll get are whether you want to progress or not.
The Neutral
The plot is could use some more depth. I don't expect depth or brilliance for a non-story driven FPS but I'd like something more that 'collect the keys to get to the treasure'. As for the last hour or two, well that's the subject of a whole other post.
The Conclusion
I can't judge Borderlands completely as I only played some of the early parts with friends (oh did I mention the game is supposed to be co-op, cause it totally is) but from my mostly single player experience I can say that although it is no masterpiece Borderlands is much better than a lot of the FPS's out there. And if it weren't for the gameplay flaws mentioned above it probably would be a masterpiece.
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
MicroReviews #1
Whenever I write I find myself alternating between two states: unable to effectively explain my views adequately, and talking at length about minor details.
In an attempt to avoid these issues (the second one at least) I'm going to try my hand at doing several smaller reviews instead of one sprawling behemoth. This way I'll avoid bloating in favour of an unsatisfying lack of depth.
Paranoia Agent
Combines the unexplained surreal style of Serial Experiments Lain with the rotating roster of characters of Boogiepop Phantom. Unfortunately the meta-plot and in particular its conclusion let down the how which starts so promising. The visuals are definitely a strong point as the animation style varies in certain scenes to illustrate a point, such as becoming more stylised to reflect a character's delusions.
3/5
Dennou Coil
A rare sci fi gem; a series that introduces futuristic technology and then actual shows some of the effects it has on the rest of the world rather than leave everything else the same (eg most DC and Marvel series'). Dennou Coil follows several kids as they live in a world with virtual reality googles. The tone is fairly light for the most part, although it does get darker by the end as the protagonists unravel the conspiracy. Like Paranoia Agent the ending is weak and for the same reason; some of the characters are directly involved with the mystery and everyone else become irrelevant. Unlike Paranoia Agent though, it doesn't bring down my entire view of the show, it just could be better.
4/5
Ergo Proxy
It's been a while so I can't remember what I like about this series. Set in a post apocalyptic world where cities exist in domes the story is about Re-l Mayer's mission to discover the truth about the mysterious Proxy. Despite the meandering plot, absence of non-grey colours and the overuse of pretentious pseudo-philosophical phrases I still look back on this work with fondness and actually find myself liking the characters rather than just tolerating them.
4/5
Blue Gender
A post is not complete until I complain bitterly about something. Yuji wakes up from cryogenic sleep to find that a mysterious race of nigh-unstoppable monsters have wiped out most of civilisation and that what's left of humanity fight a losing battle with power armour. The flaws are numerous: the action scenes are boring, most of the characters exist only as devices and plot points, and the final aesop is horrible. Not even the frequent breasts make this series worth watching.
0.5/5
In an attempt to avoid these issues (the second one at least) I'm going to try my hand at doing several smaller reviews instead of one sprawling behemoth. This way I'll avoid bloating in favour of an unsatisfying lack of depth.
Paranoia Agent
Combines the unexplained surreal style of Serial Experiments Lain with the rotating roster of characters of Boogiepop Phantom. Unfortunately the meta-plot and in particular its conclusion let down the how which starts so promising. The visuals are definitely a strong point as the animation style varies in certain scenes to illustrate a point, such as becoming more stylised to reflect a character's delusions.
3/5
Dennou Coil
A rare sci fi gem; a series that introduces futuristic technology and then actual shows some of the effects it has on the rest of the world rather than leave everything else the same (eg most DC and Marvel series'). Dennou Coil follows several kids as they live in a world with virtual reality googles. The tone is fairly light for the most part, although it does get darker by the end as the protagonists unravel the conspiracy. Like Paranoia Agent the ending is weak and for the same reason; some of the characters are directly involved with the mystery and everyone else become irrelevant. Unlike Paranoia Agent though, it doesn't bring down my entire view of the show, it just could be better.
4/5
Ergo Proxy
It's been a while so I can't remember what I like about this series. Set in a post apocalyptic world where cities exist in domes the story is about Re-l Mayer's mission to discover the truth about the mysterious Proxy. Despite the meandering plot, absence of non-grey colours and the overuse of pretentious pseudo-philosophical phrases I still look back on this work with fondness and actually find myself liking the characters rather than just tolerating them.
4/5
Blue Gender
A post is not complete until I complain bitterly about something. Yuji wakes up from cryogenic sleep to find that a mysterious race of nigh-unstoppable monsters have wiped out most of civilisation and that what's left of humanity fight a losing battle with power armour. The flaws are numerous: the action scenes are boring, most of the characters exist only as devices and plot points, and the final aesop is horrible. Not even the frequent breasts make this series worth watching.
0.5/5
Friday, October 30, 2009
Flaws
The Final Fantasy franchise is known for recurring elements, such as chocobos, names of magic spells, and summons. While replaying FFX recently I started to notice other less remembered recurring ideas, which really should stop coming back.
Insane Optimism/Morality
I get that the FF games are of the glass half full viewpoint and are generally about a group of diverse individuals coming to together to change the world for the better. Fine, I can accept that. What I can't accept is when the characters take this to an irrational extreme and are still portrayed as heroes.
A brilliant example is present in FFX where Tidus (the protagonist) frequently declares that Yuna won't have to die to temporarily defeat Sin because he'll 'think of something'. Yep that is the sum of is plan, think of something.
It gets worse when the entire group sees a flashback of Tidus' father Jecht declaring that he also 'think of something' and he then proceeds to FAIL COMPLETELY. This would be a perfect time for Tidus to learn a lesson and stop being so arrogantly idealistic. But instead he continues to announce his intent to 'think of something'.
Further more the party then go and kill the one person who can teach them how to temporarily defeat Sin. Their reasoning is that since it stops Sin for a few years it is not worth the lives of two of their friends, ignoring the fact that Sin can easily kill many more people in that time than two. But don't worry, now that they've taken out the one sure fire defence, Tidus and co will really think hard about how to save the world they've endangered.
Ineffective/Stupid Villians
I suppose it is fitting to have pathetic villains to contrast the morally questionable heroes. Or it would be if it was intentional and the you were trying to make some pretentious subversive point.
Let's look at FFX again. The order of Yevon, like all religious groups in videogames, is corrupt. What I find baffling is that they don't even attempt to hide their corruption, and yet some of the PC's are surprised when it turns out the Yevon isn't all that pure. Yuna even grew up in the city of Bevelle (the capital of Yevon) which happens to be a giant machina city (machina is banned). Did she spend her entire childhood with her eyes closed?
Further more the leaders of Yevon seem to make habit of telling people things that will anger them and then get surprised when they get angered. Most noticeably they outright tell summoners that Sin will ALWAYS come back and there is no chance that this time it won't revive (which is the motivation of a lot of summoners). Despite saying this they still expect the summoners to throw their lives at Sin.
So I'm not just referencing just one game, I'll focus on FF7's Shinra now. Initially a power company, they developed a monopoly and in time became the effective rulers of the world. They then precede to act like villians from Captain Planet by being colossal bastards for no reason while also being completely incompetent.
When they discover the location of the eco-terrorist's hideout they drop a plate on it. The city of Midgar is two layers with the second richer layer being built over the poorer original city. So when I say they drop a plate, I mean they drop a portion of their own city onto another part of it. It'd be like Sydney nuking itself so that the radiation would kill some criminals in Brisbane.
It could be said that as supreme rulers of the world they can do whatever they want such as casual genocide and unnecessary evil laughter. And that would be acceptable reasoning if Shinra's massive military force were any good. But as any astute reader could guess from context Shinra's forces are a joke. Only several hours into the game you storm Shinra's headquarters and beat the crap out of the CEO; this is when you're on the first disc of three and you have only half of your party members. If that's not a sign of incompetent enemies I don't know what is.
I'm running too long as usual so I'm going to leave the exciting conclusion for tomorrow*.
*next week
Insane Optimism/Morality
I get that the FF games are of the glass half full viewpoint and are generally about a group of diverse individuals coming to together to change the world for the better. Fine, I can accept that. What I can't accept is when the characters take this to an irrational extreme and are still portrayed as heroes.
A brilliant example is present in FFX where Tidus (the protagonist) frequently declares that Yuna won't have to die to temporarily defeat Sin because he'll 'think of something'. Yep that is the sum of is plan, think of something.
It gets worse when the entire group sees a flashback of Tidus' father Jecht declaring that he also 'think of something' and he then proceeds to FAIL COMPLETELY. This would be a perfect time for Tidus to learn a lesson and stop being so arrogantly idealistic. But instead he continues to announce his intent to 'think of something'.
Further more the party then go and kill the one person who can teach them how to temporarily defeat Sin. Their reasoning is that since it stops Sin for a few years it is not worth the lives of two of their friends, ignoring the fact that Sin can easily kill many more people in that time than two. But don't worry, now that they've taken out the one sure fire defence, Tidus and co will really think hard about how to save the world they've endangered.
Ineffective/Stupid Villians
I suppose it is fitting to have pathetic villains to contrast the morally questionable heroes. Or it would be if it was intentional and the you were trying to make some pretentious subversive point.
Let's look at FFX again. The order of Yevon, like all religious groups in videogames, is corrupt. What I find baffling is that they don't even attempt to hide their corruption, and yet some of the PC's are surprised when it turns out the Yevon isn't all that pure. Yuna even grew up in the city of Bevelle (the capital of Yevon) which happens to be a giant machina city (machina is banned). Did she spend her entire childhood with her eyes closed?
Further more the leaders of Yevon seem to make habit of telling people things that will anger them and then get surprised when they get angered. Most noticeably they outright tell summoners that Sin will ALWAYS come back and there is no chance that this time it won't revive (which is the motivation of a lot of summoners). Despite saying this they still expect the summoners to throw their lives at Sin.
So I'm not just referencing just one game, I'll focus on FF7's Shinra now. Initially a power company, they developed a monopoly and in time became the effective rulers of the world. They then precede to act like villians from Captain Planet by being colossal bastards for no reason while also being completely incompetent.
When they discover the location of the eco-terrorist's hideout they drop a plate on it. The city of Midgar is two layers with the second richer layer being built over the poorer original city. So when I say they drop a plate, I mean they drop a portion of their own city onto another part of it. It'd be like Sydney nuking itself so that the radiation would kill some criminals in Brisbane.
It could be said that as supreme rulers of the world they can do whatever they want such as casual genocide and unnecessary evil laughter. And that would be acceptable reasoning if Shinra's massive military force were any good. But as any astute reader could guess from context Shinra's forces are a joke. Only several hours into the game you storm Shinra's headquarters and beat the crap out of the CEO; this is when you're on the first disc of three and you have only half of your party members. If that's not a sign of incompetent enemies I don't know what is.
I'm running too long as usual so I'm going to leave the exciting conclusion for tomorrow*.
*next week
Friday, October 16, 2009
Fractured
As you may be aware, Australia has some pretty intense censorship laws in comparison to other western countries (does Germany count as western?). When they are not outright banning media they are gutting it of its content, and in their spare time they are building a giant internet filter.
Left 4 Dead 2 Refusal of Classification
Though I'm rather ambivalent about the game, I am all for it getting into the country unchanged but apparently hacking the limbs off the zombies is too graphic. Outright banning probably won't occur as Valve will nerf the violence instead. So L4D2 could end up like No More Heroes, mechanically fine but visually butchered.
Last year Fallout 3 was also refused classification. What's strange about this is that the refusal was due to drug use, and not violence. Violence such as the slow motion kills you get from using VATS (ie all the time).
Mandatory Australian Firewall
I have difficulty trying to express my contempt for this idea without resorting to unimaginative responses like 'Luddite thinking' or 'where are we, China?'. On the most basic level the proposed firewall slows down all of Australia's internet.
What I find more troublesome is the vagueness of what will be banned and what won't. Content that is outright illegal (child porn, snuff films etc) is obviously out but things that are either immoral or offensive may be in danger. This worries me because not only do I enjoy some things that are technically immoral/offensive but I also don't like the government having a say in what's right and wrong (barring actual laws of course).
On a slightly more absurd note, I find it interesting that they'll be blocking child porn because I was under the impression that they used those sites to track down paedophiles. It would be funny (in the blackest sense) if paedophilia in Australia rose due because authorities couldn't track any down, and also because without the internet they had to make their own entertainment.
Even though I'm being hypothetical I may have crossed a line there.
Alternative Democracy
Half-heartedly researching this post made me wonder who the hell I should have voted for last election. My biggest complaint with democracy is that voters don't have nearly as much choice as they are made out to have. All you can do is vote for a party and hope they go through their promises. Given that people with actual knowledge and experience in politics have failed to come up with a good solutions to democracy's shortcomings I don't claim to have the answers; however I would like it if there was some way to make an 'antivote'. While I find it hard to find a party I agree with, I find it easy to think of one I want to keep out of power.
Left 4 Dead 2 Refusal of Classification
Though I'm rather ambivalent about the game, I am all for it getting into the country unchanged but apparently hacking the limbs off the zombies is too graphic. Outright banning probably won't occur as Valve will nerf the violence instead. So L4D2 could end up like No More Heroes, mechanically fine but visually butchered.
Last year Fallout 3 was also refused classification. What's strange about this is that the refusal was due to drug use, and not violence. Violence such as the slow motion kills you get from using VATS (ie all the time).
Mandatory Australian Firewall
I have difficulty trying to express my contempt for this idea without resorting to unimaginative responses like 'Luddite thinking' or 'where are we, China?'. On the most basic level the proposed firewall slows down all of Australia's internet.
What I find more troublesome is the vagueness of what will be banned and what won't. Content that is outright illegal (child porn, snuff films etc) is obviously out but things that are either immoral or offensive may be in danger. This worries me because not only do I enjoy some things that are technically immoral/offensive but I also don't like the government having a say in what's right and wrong (barring actual laws of course).
On a slightly more absurd note, I find it interesting that they'll be blocking child porn because I was under the impression that they used those sites to track down paedophiles. It would be funny (in the blackest sense) if paedophilia in Australia rose due because authorities couldn't track any down, and also because without the internet they had to make their own entertainment.
Even though I'm being hypothetical I may have crossed a line there.
Alternative Democracy
Half-heartedly researching this post made me wonder who the hell I should have voted for last election. My biggest complaint with democracy is that voters don't have nearly as much choice as they are made out to have. All you can do is vote for a party and hope they go through their promises. Given that people with actual knowledge and experience in politics have failed to come up with a good solutions to democracy's shortcomings I don't claim to have the answers; however I would like it if there was some way to make an 'antivote'. While I find it hard to find a party I agree with, I find it easy to think of one I want to keep out of power.
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
Obsolete
I was wasting time on TV Tropes when I happened to find out that Yahtzee of Zero Punctuation fame also does articles in addition to his weekly video so he can elaborate on things he had to leave out.
Awesome.
Until I realise that Extra Punctuation covers the same topics as my blog (minus the anime) except that he does it more entertainingly, with more skill and focus, and has an actual audience.
So it's one more name to the list of websites that do what I do but better.
Awesome.
Until I realise that Extra Punctuation covers the same topics as my blog (minus the anime) except that he does it more entertainingly, with more skill and focus, and has an actual audience.
So it's one more name to the list of websites that do what I do but better.
Saturday, October 10, 2009
Democracy
Gordon Freeman looks to be the winner of the GameSpot 'All-Time Greatest Game Hero' competition. In the annual GameFAQs polls he also tends to do rather well. Even though I'm aware that these sorts of events are meaningless I still wish embarrassing injuries and unfortunate illnesses down on people who vote for Gordon Freeman.
Now if I had readers I'd probably be accused by fanboys that I'm just a sore loser because my character didn't get picked. Well the jokes on you hypothetical reader, as my favourites never even make it into these competitions. Yeah take that, I theoretically showed you up.
And besides that not even the main reason for my hate of Gordon's success.
Gordon is a silent protagonist. Other characters in Half Life games will talk to him and apparently accept (and expect) no response. The idea is that by not speaking it makes it easier to imagine that you are Gordon Freeman.
I like this sort of feature in the right circumstances, like games with some sort of roleplaying element or when you are able to make important game-shaping choices. Half Life games are linear first person shooters. You can only ever take one course of action so the only real thing left to your imagination is how Gordon feels about this: 'I don't want to go through Ravenholm but I've got no God-damn choice. And Alyx I swear I'm going to slap you next time I see you.'
Further more, although he doesn't have a voice or personality, Gordon still has a name and appearance. To me this seems to greatly hinder the whole 'imagine it's you' idea.
Hear that Valve? I think your concept is overhyped and flawed.
On a side note, why the fuck is the crowbar Gordon's signature weapon. With the exception of right at the start of the game when do people use it? The gravity gun would make a lot more sense as it has relevance in game, and is more unique than the obligatory melee weapon. It's not like the wrench is Jack's Signature weapon in Bioshock or so forth.
Monday, October 5, 2009
Potential Irony
Usually for every post that's....posted there's half a dozen drafts which never see the metaphorical light of metaphorical day. The end result of this is that I waste several hours a week typing rants and reviews and finish with nothing to show for it. What does get unleashed to the internet is not the peak of my creative abilities however, but rather whatever has the good fortune to be typed when my standards are lower than usual (or I'm feeling vindictive).
So here's an attempt to revive a draft from incomplete to mediocrity.
Why bother pad out the post with the above paragraph? It is after all rather unnecessary and not particularly interesting.
It is however very appropriate as this post is a summary of my opinions about Stephen King, master of horror and padding the hell out of stories.
I find it hard to find new authors I like but when I do I generally tear through all their works like a rabid dog. With nothing to read for several months I figured King would be a good idea as he was fairly popular and had written a considerable amount of stories.
I started with King's magnum opus, the Dark Tower series. Right off the bat I was interested as in the introduction King admits he was inspired by Tolkien and wanted to make something epic. This struck a major chord with me as I've frequently wanted to write an epic saga that encompasses many genres and ties together years of lore.
The Dark Tower series tries to do this and it has a lot to play with: parallel universes, post apocalyptic lands, the fate of all existence and references to past King novels. Unfortunately like all series with surreal/meta elements it becomes a mess and ends unsatisfactory (which is one of the reasons I stopped caring about Lost).
After finishing the 7 book marathon I had found enough things that I didn't care for to stop reading King's books, but I couldn't tell what was King's style and what was just part of the Dark Tower series.
Next came The Stand, King's magnum opus according to everyone who don't like the Dark Tower. Let's see; virus kills almost everyone, cool; psychic dreams for the survivors, 'kay; rebuilding of society sidetracked by Antichrist,......hmmm; unsatisfying end, dammit.
Currently I'm reading It and I had had plans to also read Carrie but at this point I can see that most of the things in the Dark Tower I didn't like were not unique but part of King's style.
First and foremost there's the recurring element of destiny, that there's some force that drives both the protagonists and antagonists together. Fate is much like Superman: they are both far too powerful for most settings and if not used correctly tend to make stories dull and tensionless. And King does not do destiny particularly well in my opinion.
In all the books I've read so far destiny has been used as a weak justification for basically anything that needs justifying. If characters need to bond, they'll intuitively feel a connection. If a confrontation needs to happen, everyone involved will feel themselves being lead there.
Although I'm never fond of fate in fiction (as I feel it takes away from the characters' achievements) I can tolerate it if done well. Too bad King uses it for corner cutting at best and deus ex machinas at worst.
As mentioned before King loves his padding. I like to think that if he and Hideo Kojima ever worked together on something, it would be so long that it would take more than the human lifespan to finish. In small doses (if that's even possible) it is rather neat, as it can flesh out a tertiary character into more than just a plot device and it allows the planting of really subtle Chekhov's Guns.
The amount of padding actually used far accedes this though. The tertiary character goes past fleshed out straight into bloated. I like some depth to people who show up in one scene but I don't need their life story.
The final point I'd like to touch on is genre. King writes predominately horror, I read predominately speculative fiction. The end result is that although the two genre's events and characters tend to overlap, but the view and style vary greatly. This isn't a criticism, just a sad by product. I want books about humanity rebuilding after a virus or a shapeshifting cosmic horror but not the way King does it.
In closing I think I should point out that although I dislike much of what King does (including other things I haven't mentioned) he is still a talented writer. i just don't like what he does.
So here's an attempt to revive a draft from incomplete to mediocrity.
Why bother pad out the post with the above paragraph? It is after all rather unnecessary and not particularly interesting.
It is however very appropriate as this post is a summary of my opinions about Stephen King, master of horror and padding the hell out of stories.
I find it hard to find new authors I like but when I do I generally tear through all their works like a rabid dog. With nothing to read for several months I figured King would be a good idea as he was fairly popular and had written a considerable amount of stories.
I started with King's magnum opus, the Dark Tower series. Right off the bat I was interested as in the introduction King admits he was inspired by Tolkien and wanted to make something epic. This struck a major chord with me as I've frequently wanted to write an epic saga that encompasses many genres and ties together years of lore.
The Dark Tower series tries to do this and it has a lot to play with: parallel universes, post apocalyptic lands, the fate of all existence and references to past King novels. Unfortunately like all series with surreal/meta elements it becomes a mess and ends unsatisfactory (which is one of the reasons I stopped caring about Lost).
After finishing the 7 book marathon I had found enough things that I didn't care for to stop reading King's books, but I couldn't tell what was King's style and what was just part of the Dark Tower series.
Next came The Stand, King's magnum opus according to everyone who don't like the Dark Tower. Let's see; virus kills almost everyone, cool; psychic dreams for the survivors, 'kay; rebuilding of society sidetracked by Antichrist,......hmmm; unsatisfying end, dammit.
Currently I'm reading It and I had had plans to also read Carrie but at this point I can see that most of the things in the Dark Tower I didn't like were not unique but part of King's style.
First and foremost there's the recurring element of destiny, that there's some force that drives both the protagonists and antagonists together. Fate is much like Superman: they are both far too powerful for most settings and if not used correctly tend to make stories dull and tensionless. And King does not do destiny particularly well in my opinion.
In all the books I've read so far destiny has been used as a weak justification for basically anything that needs justifying. If characters need to bond, they'll intuitively feel a connection. If a confrontation needs to happen, everyone involved will feel themselves being lead there.
Although I'm never fond of fate in fiction (as I feel it takes away from the characters' achievements) I can tolerate it if done well. Too bad King uses it for corner cutting at best and deus ex machinas at worst.
As mentioned before King loves his padding. I like to think that if he and Hideo Kojima ever worked together on something, it would be so long that it would take more than the human lifespan to finish. In small doses (if that's even possible) it is rather neat, as it can flesh out a tertiary character into more than just a plot device and it allows the planting of really subtle Chekhov's Guns.
The amount of padding actually used far accedes this though. The tertiary character goes past fleshed out straight into bloated. I like some depth to people who show up in one scene but I don't need their life story.
The final point I'd like to touch on is genre. King writes predominately horror, I read predominately speculative fiction. The end result is that although the two genre's events and characters tend to overlap, but the view and style vary greatly. This isn't a criticism, just a sad by product. I want books about humanity rebuilding after a virus or a shapeshifting cosmic horror but not the way King does it.
In closing I think I should point out that although I dislike much of what King does (including other things I haven't mentioned) he is still a talented writer. i just don't like what he does.
Sunday, September 27, 2009
Bonus Post
One of the many hopeless ideas of mine that periodically surfaces is the idea to do web comic. In Garry's Mod. With various copyrighted characters.
Unfortunately all I've got is a premise; I don't have any real ideas how to make the comic amusing, much like this blog really. Unlike this blog however, there are additional hurdles, which in comparison to a lack of ideas, are 10 feet tall, spiked and electrified.
Garry's Mod requires a lot of time, patience, knowledge and skill to use even remotely well, and none of these traits can be compensated for with excess of others; you must be all of these things.
But before even this hate-filled hurdle is another, which is also on fire and dispenses evil candy. I speak of course of getting the freaking character models to begin with. The desired characters have to be extracted from games or emulators and modified until they can be effectively used in Garry's Mod. And unlike most skins and objects in GMod the people who do succeed at doing this difficult task never seem to feel like sharing.
Here are some examples of models I sadly cannot get my hands on:
Unfortunately all I've got is a premise; I don't have any real ideas how to make the comic amusing, much like this blog really. Unlike this blog however, there are additional hurdles, which in comparison to a lack of ideas, are 10 feet tall, spiked and electrified.
Garry's Mod requires a lot of time, patience, knowledge and skill to use even remotely well, and none of these traits can be compensated for with excess of others; you must be all of these things.
But before even this hate-filled hurdle is another, which is also on fire and dispenses evil candy. I speak of course of getting the freaking character models to begin with. The desired characters have to be extracted from games or emulators and modified until they can be effectively used in Garry's Mod. And unlike most skins and objects in GMod the people who do succeed at doing this difficult task never seem to feel like sharing.
Here are some examples of models I sadly cannot get my hands on:
Back from Purgatory
It's been a while since I last posted; complete loss of password security tends to interfere with schedules.
What I had been planning to do just after the last post was an apology. Self-deprecating humour aside the previous post was a new low. It wasn't entertaining, informing or insightful.
While I could laugh it off and say that the lack of focus, structure and quality are part of this blog's style, similar to how the font, size and layout varies from post to post (long story). I could say that, but that would be like Uwe Boll saying he's a good director whose signature style is 'making crap movies'.
Part of the basis of this blog was to experiment with styles till I found a good one and maybe even developed some sort of fan base (I don't aim or dream particularly high). However I took the easy way out with basically textual diarrhea; I sprayed unpleasant paragraphs of unfinished thought out onto the internet.
Also I hope I just killed someone's appetite.
Since I know myself rather well I'm not going to bother promising to produce better quality posts because I almost stick with any vows I make. I will however try to produce better quality.
In conclusion, here's a picture with no relevance to anything:
What I had been planning to do just after the last post was an apology. Self-deprecating humour aside the previous post was a new low. It wasn't entertaining, informing or insightful.
While I could laugh it off and say that the lack of focus, structure and quality are part of this blog's style, similar to how the font, size and layout varies from post to post (long story). I could say that, but that would be like Uwe Boll saying he's a good director whose signature style is 'making crap movies'.
Part of the basis of this blog was to experiment with styles till I found a good one and maybe even developed some sort of fan base (I don't aim or dream particularly high). However I took the easy way out with basically textual diarrhea; I sprayed unpleasant paragraphs of unfinished thought out onto the internet.
Also I hope I just killed someone's appetite.
Since I know myself rather well I'm not going to bother promising to produce better quality posts because I almost stick with any vows I make. I will however try to produce better quality.
In conclusion, here's a picture with no relevance to anything:
Sunday, September 20, 2009
Complaining about WoW #1
Note: Don't bother reading this, it's not really worth anyone's time.
With the recent (for this blog anyway; I'm always several weeks behind) announcements about WoW's next expansion I'm filled with raging ambivalence. I'm like the Hulk except with a happy form as well as an angry one. Also my forms don't give me any powers. You know, never mind.
Judging by the revelations at this year's Blizzcon Cataclysm seems to be following in Blizzard's tradition of having clever ideas and innovations but somehow managing to be crushingly disappointing at the same time. It'd be like having a machine that cured cancer and stopped world hunger, but also kicked you in the balls. I think I'll give up on the similes now.
Since I can go on indefinitely about what I like and dislike about Cataclysm (despite not being out yet) and WoW in general for this post I'll just focus on some non-specific issues and leave the interesting stuff for another time ;P.
I feel dirty for using that now.
On the most basic level I'm opposed to purchased expansions to subscription games mostly because I was under the impression that subscriptions were essentially an alternative to having to purchase an expansion from time to time. But apparently subscribers are only paying for continued playing of old content. Funny, most companies with less money than Blizzard allow players to do just that without charging them money.
If having to pay for a glorified content patch isn't bad enough, the new content generally comes in two unpleasant flavours: more of the same, and gimmicky gameplay shifts.
To clarify more of the same; naturally I don't expect everything in an expansion to be new cutting edge ideas that reinvent the genre while transcending it. The fundamentals of the game should remain intact for the most part. So why the hell am I complaining about expansion having more of the same content when I've just said that things need to be the same? Examples can illustrate this better than I can.
One of the major features of the first WoW expansion TBC (The Burning Crusade) was the addition of 2 new races. Now this would be great if race was particularly relevant; too bad in WoW all race essentially does decide appearance and grant some minor skills.
It's a shame to because race can be used to give radical gameplay differences. In Vampire: the Masquerade: Bloodlines 2 of the available clans have unique features. A a Nosferatu you are visibly monsters and thus have to hide from mortal view, and as a Malkavian you are completely insane and so you get very distinct dialogue.
I don't have any more notable examples for more of the same, but I've got plenty (2) for gimmicky gameplay shifts. So what do I mean with this collection of buzz words? Basically any deviation from the standard gameplay style, but not so far as to become a total Genre Shift. Since I clearly suck at clearly explaining things, let's just go back to examples. Both of the WoW expansions have a brilliant one each.
In TBC one of the big selling points were flying mounts. While they allow you to pass difficult terrain and avoid enemies, flying mounts unfortunately also defy some of the open world's features, such as difficult terrain and enemies in your way. Quests where you'd have to fight your way up a mountain to assassinate a named boss become trivial when you can fly straight to the target. I suppose ultimately it depends on whether you think things like immersion and exploration are important, and if you don't wtf are you doing playing an open world game?
In WotLK (Wrath of the Lich King) the gimmick was vehicles, although despite the name this also included instances of riding mounts or transforming into things. Basically it was a standardisation of all the mechanics that changed the nature of the player's character (which to be fair before WotLK was pretty atrocious). What I don't like about this was that this created various occasions where your actual characters growth and capabilities were completely irrelevant. It is a similar problem to a lot of the minigames in Final Fantasy games, where any and all of the leveling you've done will not help you unlock useful items.
Further more, the developers use vehicles rather frequently in the expansion as it's far easier to balance the difficultly when everyone is the same rather than for 30+ different types of playstyle.
Well that's all for now. Looking back at this post I can see it's even less focused and coherent than usual. However given that I've already typed it all, I guess I'll unleash it upon the world like an unwanted pregnancy and just try to make up for it with better posts in the future.
With the recent (for this blog anyway; I'm always several weeks behind) announcements about WoW's next expansion I'm filled with raging ambivalence. I'm like the Hulk except with a happy form as well as an angry one. Also my forms don't give me any powers. You know, never mind.
Judging by the revelations at this year's Blizzcon Cataclysm seems to be following in Blizzard's tradition of having clever ideas and innovations but somehow managing to be crushingly disappointing at the same time. It'd be like having a machine that cured cancer and stopped world hunger, but also kicked you in the balls. I think I'll give up on the similes now.
Since I can go on indefinitely about what I like and dislike about Cataclysm (despite not being out yet) and WoW in general for this post I'll just focus on some non-specific issues and leave the interesting stuff for another time ;P.
I feel dirty for using that now.
On the most basic level I'm opposed to purchased expansions to subscription games mostly because I was under the impression that subscriptions were essentially an alternative to having to purchase an expansion from time to time. But apparently subscribers are only paying for continued playing of old content. Funny, most companies with less money than Blizzard allow players to do just that without charging them money.
If having to pay for a glorified content patch isn't bad enough, the new content generally comes in two unpleasant flavours: more of the same, and gimmicky gameplay shifts.
To clarify more of the same; naturally I don't expect everything in an expansion to be new cutting edge ideas that reinvent the genre while transcending it. The fundamentals of the game should remain intact for the most part. So why the hell am I complaining about expansion having more of the same content when I've just said that things need to be the same? Examples can illustrate this better than I can.
One of the major features of the first WoW expansion TBC (The Burning Crusade) was the addition of 2 new races. Now this would be great if race was particularly relevant; too bad in WoW all race essentially does decide appearance and grant some minor skills.
It's a shame to because race can be used to give radical gameplay differences. In Vampire: the Masquerade: Bloodlines 2 of the available clans have unique features. A a Nosferatu you are visibly monsters and thus have to hide from mortal view, and as a Malkavian you are completely insane and so you get very distinct dialogue.
I don't have any more notable examples for more of the same, but I've got plenty (2) for gimmicky gameplay shifts. So what do I mean with this collection of buzz words? Basically any deviation from the standard gameplay style, but not so far as to become a total Genre Shift. Since I clearly suck at clearly explaining things, let's just go back to examples. Both of the WoW expansions have a brilliant one each.
In TBC one of the big selling points were flying mounts. While they allow you to pass difficult terrain and avoid enemies, flying mounts unfortunately also defy some of the open world's features, such as difficult terrain and enemies in your way. Quests where you'd have to fight your way up a mountain to assassinate a named boss become trivial when you can fly straight to the target. I suppose ultimately it depends on whether you think things like immersion and exploration are important, and if you don't wtf are you doing playing an open world game?
In WotLK (Wrath of the Lich King) the gimmick was vehicles, although despite the name this also included instances of riding mounts or transforming into things. Basically it was a standardisation of all the mechanics that changed the nature of the player's character (which to be fair before WotLK was pretty atrocious). What I don't like about this was that this created various occasions where your actual characters growth and capabilities were completely irrelevant. It is a similar problem to a lot of the minigames in Final Fantasy games, where any and all of the leveling you've done will not help you unlock useful items.
Further more, the developers use vehicles rather frequently in the expansion as it's far easier to balance the difficultly when everyone is the same rather than for 30+ different types of playstyle.
Well that's all for now. Looking back at this post I can see it's even less focused and coherent than usual. However given that I've already typed it all, I guess I'll unleash it upon the world like an unwanted pregnancy and just try to make up for it with better posts in the future.
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
!!!
As hypothetical readers of mine might remember I spent far too much time talking about an idea for a special infected. It was a female zombie with pigtails whose primary attack was a spitting move.
And then just now I found this on the Left 4 Dead wiki.
This right here is one of the main reasons were I decided to start inflicting my opinions onto the internet.
Many times in the past I've had a great idea that then turns out to be not as original as I thought.
Nowoften sometimes it turns out that I had unconsciously stolen this idea, generally by seeing the movie/game/whatever as a children and then forgetting it, except for a particular idea which I then assume I came up with on my own.
Further more, in most other occasions the idea has just been such a simple and universal one that anyone, and in practice, everyone will reach it.
However, just like the guy that has to loudly predict plot twists in fiction, I feel the urge to inform people of my concepts/ideas. Regardless of how childish and petty it is, I enjoy being able to say 'I thought of this first/too'.
And then just now I found this on the Left 4 Dead wiki.
This right here is one of the main reasons were I decided to start inflicting my opinions onto the internet.
Many times in the past I've had a great idea that then turns out to be not as original as I thought.
Now
Further more, in most other occasions the idea has just been such a simple and universal one that anyone, and in practice, everyone will reach it.
However, just like the guy that has to loudly predict plot twists in fiction, I feel the urge to inform people of my concepts/ideas. Regardless of how childish and petty it is, I enjoy being able to say 'I thought of this first/too'.
Friday, September 4, 2009
Totally Epic
It has occurred to me that I've been neglecting the main purpose of blogs, nay the internet. The world wide web exists for people to tell others about the inane details of their daily lives and I haven't been doing my part. After all, if we don't do this, who will? Foreigners, homosexuals and communists that's who.
I'm a fairly lazy person. I tend to procrastinate as much as possible, but sometimes I just can't be bothered to do even that. So just earlier I decided to have that shave I had been needing for the last fortnight. Trivial enough yet? Well I can doworse better.
Despite being a simple procedure the act of shaving varies in the details from person to person. For me the mundane routine goes:
1) Apply shaving cream. It doesn't seem to do anything but I'm not going to argue with every other male of the modern world.
2) Find the comfortable angle to shave with, then reverse it because biology hates you and this is more effective.
3) Avoid slashing throat. Getting those last few hairs is not worth the potential embarrassment/death.
4) Give up on the last lingering hairs. They win this round.
5) Realise how much time has been wasted on this endeavour, cue existential crisis.
And now you know how I shave. But for those of you who want more than just a recount of basic life exercise, here's a low fantasy style story* inspired by the act of shaving:
Grim Dark and the Tsinogatna
Gripping his well-notched sword tightly Grim brought it down past his opponent's guard and carved deeply into his torso. Blood spurted from the gaping wound as the Tsinogatna savage collasped into a heap.
Glancing around Grim noticed that he had now been completely surrounded. It had been only a matter of time but he had hoped to make more progress before it had happened. Only a scant five Tsinogatna lay dead at his feet.
"Fight me like warriors you bastards," Grim exhorted, assuming a defensive stance.
The Tsinogatna were a hostile people. From their mountain refuges they would raid nearby, more peaceful villages and towns. None could predict when and where they'd strike so the only way to deal with the Tsinogatna was to take the fight to them.
After some less than effective attempts from local militias Grim Dark had been approached. Even in this backwater country the pilgrim's exploits were known.
Two of the vicious Tsinogatna began to approach the lone fighter, their weapons rusted and wicked, their eyes dark and violent. Spinning around suddenly Grim slashed the third savage who had been approaching from behind. They'd need more than that to down the legendary mercenary.
Undeterred the remaining two attacked at once. Grim dexterously rolled to the left and struck one of them in the his unprotected side, Grim's sword cracking ribs and piercing organs.
The last attacker leapt at Grim, snarling and bringing his axe down. The sword met the axe and the weapons locked. Grunting Grim forced the clashed weapons aside with one hand and punched the Tsinogatna in the face with his other. Nose and jaw broken the savage was hopeless against Grim's finishing blow.
One on one the Tsinogatna stood no chance against the pilgrim as Grim was by far physically superior to them. His chiselled muscles were covered in a network of scars, each one a hard won fight and life experience. While muscular, Grim was not bulky, but rather lean, like a lone wolf. And like a lone wolf he was ruthless and determined.
Before he had even managed to pull his sword from his latest corpse another five Tsinogatna from the surrounding dozens surged forward. Quickly looting the his last opponent's weapon, Grim stood defiantly sword and axe in hand.
"Your Gods have forsaken you," he laughed.
Grim danced the dance of death. Tsinogatna fell before him but more filled their place. Whatever they gave he gave back better and soon there was nothing but blood and silence. A few Tsinogatna had fled but most were dead. You could never get all of them, all you could do was lessen their numbers.
On top of a pile of his slain enemies, cut and bruised, Grim stood grinning. On this day he was the victor but there would always be more fights for that was the way of the drifter.
*Assume any and all cliches and bad writing are a deliberate parody.
I'm a fairly lazy person. I tend to procrastinate as much as possible, but sometimes I just can't be bothered to do even that. So just earlier I decided to have that shave I had been needing for the last fortnight. Trivial enough yet? Well I can do
Despite being a simple procedure the act of shaving varies in the details from person to person. For me the mundane routine goes:
1) Apply shaving cream. It doesn't seem to do anything but I'm not going to argue with every other male of the modern world.
2) Find the comfortable angle to shave with, then reverse it because biology hates you and this is more effective.
3) Avoid slashing throat. Getting those last few hairs is not worth the potential embarrassment/death.
4) Give up on the last lingering hairs. They win this round.
5) Realise how much time has been wasted on this endeavour, cue existential crisis.
And now you know how I shave. But for those of you who want more than just a recount of basic life exercise, here's a low fantasy style story* inspired by the act of shaving:
Grim Dark and the Tsinogatna
Gripping his well-notched sword tightly Grim brought it down past his opponent's guard and carved deeply into his torso. Blood spurted from the gaping wound as the Tsinogatna savage collasped into a heap.
Glancing around Grim noticed that he had now been completely surrounded. It had been only a matter of time but he had hoped to make more progress before it had happened. Only a scant five Tsinogatna lay dead at his feet.
"Fight me like warriors you bastards," Grim exhorted, assuming a defensive stance.
The Tsinogatna were a hostile people. From their mountain refuges they would raid nearby, more peaceful villages and towns. None could predict when and where they'd strike so the only way to deal with the Tsinogatna was to take the fight to them.
After some less than effective attempts from local militias Grim Dark had been approached. Even in this backwater country the pilgrim's exploits were known.
Two of the vicious Tsinogatna began to approach the lone fighter, their weapons rusted and wicked, their eyes dark and violent. Spinning around suddenly Grim slashed the third savage who had been approaching from behind. They'd need more than that to down the legendary mercenary.
Undeterred the remaining two attacked at once. Grim dexterously rolled to the left and struck one of them in the his unprotected side, Grim's sword cracking ribs and piercing organs.
The last attacker leapt at Grim, snarling and bringing his axe down. The sword met the axe and the weapons locked. Grunting Grim forced the clashed weapons aside with one hand and punched the Tsinogatna in the face with his other. Nose and jaw broken the savage was hopeless against Grim's finishing blow.
One on one the Tsinogatna stood no chance against the pilgrim as Grim was by far physically superior to them. His chiselled muscles were covered in a network of scars, each one a hard won fight and life experience. While muscular, Grim was not bulky, but rather lean, like a lone wolf. And like a lone wolf he was ruthless and determined.
Before he had even managed to pull his sword from his latest corpse another five Tsinogatna from the surrounding dozens surged forward. Quickly looting the his last opponent's weapon, Grim stood defiantly sword and axe in hand.
"Your Gods have forsaken you," he laughed.
Grim danced the dance of death. Tsinogatna fell before him but more filled their place. Whatever they gave he gave back better and soon there was nothing but blood and silence. A few Tsinogatna had fled but most were dead. You could never get all of them, all you could do was lessen their numbers.
On top of a pile of his slain enemies, cut and bruised, Grim stood grinning. On this day he was the victor but there would always be more fights for that was the way of the drifter.
*Assume any and all cliches and bad writing are a deliberate parody.
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
The Ambiguity
What are they really worried about? Killer plants or their acting careers. The combination of Foxtel and no job gives me ample opportunity to watch bad movies; the latest one? The Happening.
I tend to avoid tearing into things that everyone else already dislikes because I feel like a backup singer or a Youtube commenter; just repeating what has already been said many times before. I'm not going to criticise a Uwe Boll film because 1) everyone with taste already has done it and 2) his film's do a good enough job by themselves.
But after watching The Happening some things need to be said.
If you've been living under a rock or just don't plain care, the plot of The Happening is that plants (all plants) start releasing a neurotoxin that causes people to kill themselves. That's about it. There are some characters the film follows but they are pretty two dimensional; I'm guessing the actors saw the premise and decided not waste their time expressing emotion.
It seems that M Night Shyamalan wanted to do a slasher flick but since it wasn't his style he tried to graft some slasher elements onto a supernatural mystery thriller. I say this because the suicide-causing neurotoxin seems to cause the afflicted to kill themselves in the most gimmicky and visually stylised way possible.
One scene has some people in a car drive down a road where all the local residents had hung themselves on the trees that were along the road. This would be creepy and atmospheric in a better film, this is The Happening so instead you just wonder that it would have been easier for the people to just bash their heads into a window or two.
There are other features and applications of the toxin that I could eviscerate textually, but I've got slightly bigger fish to fry.
The entire movie either wants to be all scientific and deep, or it's a subtle but incorrect parody. At various points in The Happening the characters stop to explain (to the audience mostly) why something is happening. What makes this worse than usual is that these conclusions the characters miraculously come to all try to be seated in fact. Phrases like "scientists have proven" or "it has been shown that" are present in any of these infodumps as if Shyamalan is trying to justify his retarded concept (as I said above, I could elaborate on the toxin's many, MANY flaws but I'm trying to be brief).
Or alternatively, these 'scientific' explanations are a satire of 'educated' people who try to reason away all the things they can't understand. After all in one scene the poor excuse for a protagonist actually uses scientific method to work out what to do when a nearby group goes crazy. You what he suggests after this intellectual exercise? They run (which is obvious) from the wind (which is just plain silly).
In some scenes the plants are portrayed as possessing some sort of intelligence as apparently they are all communicating to one another and are sending a warning to humanity. But in others it is purely chemical and instinctive as they don't seem to be aware of people if there isn't a large group. Although, maybe the plants just adhere to their 'kill everyone in cities and work your way down in size' plan to the letter, and leave randoms alive while there are still town and city people to off. Whatever the reason, it just results in times where the characters are wandering around outside apparently safe nad a complete loss of tension.
The film wants to have some sort of green aesop, but messages like 'stop polluting or the trees will kill you' aren't particularly effective or clever. What's more, rather than causing people to start thinking about looking after the environment, if all plant life sent a homicide warning humanity embark on a global defoliation campaign, wiping out all plants except for those kept in controlled oxygen production facilities. Although this would probably unite the world better than the plot of Watchmen.
The worst parts of The Happening are the ones that would be good scenes in a better film; they are depressing to watch as you can see the potential for something unnerving shining through. The aforementioned street of hanging people is one example. Two other examples are when everyone in the park suddenly freeze (undermined because of the weak reasoning), and when cars of fleeing people meet up at a crossroads from all four directions (undermined by how they just stand around in the open despite all the trees nearby).
I suppose I'll just finish up with the joke that no doubt everyone has come up with independently: for a film called The Happening, nothing much happens. Comedy gold.
I tend to avoid tearing into things that everyone else already dislikes because I feel like a backup singer or a Youtube commenter; just repeating what has already been said many times before. I'm not going to criticise a Uwe Boll film because 1) everyone with taste already has done it and 2) his film's do a good enough job by themselves.
But after watching The Happening some things need to be said.
If you've been living under a rock or just don't plain care, the plot of The Happening is that plants (all plants) start releasing a neurotoxin that causes people to kill themselves. That's about it. There are some characters the film follows but they are pretty two dimensional; I'm guessing the actors saw the premise and decided not waste their time expressing emotion.
It seems that M Night Shyamalan wanted to do a slasher flick but since it wasn't his style he tried to graft some slasher elements onto a supernatural mystery thriller. I say this because the suicide-causing neurotoxin seems to cause the afflicted to kill themselves in the most gimmicky and visually stylised way possible.
One scene has some people in a car drive down a road where all the local residents had hung themselves on the trees that were along the road. This would be creepy and atmospheric in a better film, this is The Happening so instead you just wonder that it would have been easier for the people to just bash their heads into a window or two.
There are other features and applications of the toxin that I could eviscerate textually, but I've got slightly bigger fish to fry.
The entire movie either wants to be all scientific and deep, or it's a subtle but incorrect parody. At various points in The Happening the characters stop to explain (to the audience mostly) why something is happening. What makes this worse than usual is that these conclusions the characters miraculously come to all try to be seated in fact. Phrases like "scientists have proven" or "it has been shown that" are present in any of these infodumps as if Shyamalan is trying to justify his retarded concept (as I said above, I could elaborate on the toxin's many, MANY flaws but I'm trying to be brief).
Or alternatively, these 'scientific' explanations are a satire of 'educated' people who try to reason away all the things they can't understand. After all in one scene the poor excuse for a protagonist actually uses scientific method to work out what to do when a nearby group goes crazy. You what he suggests after this intellectual exercise? They run (which is obvious) from the wind (which is just plain silly).
In some scenes the plants are portrayed as possessing some sort of intelligence as apparently they are all communicating to one another and are sending a warning to humanity. But in others it is purely chemical and instinctive as they don't seem to be aware of people if there isn't a large group. Although, maybe the plants just adhere to their 'kill everyone in cities and work your way down in size' plan to the letter, and leave randoms alive while there are still town and city people to off. Whatever the reason, it just results in times where the characters are wandering around outside apparently safe nad a complete loss of tension.
The film wants to have some sort of green aesop, but messages like 'stop polluting or the trees will kill you' aren't particularly effective or clever. What's more, rather than causing people to start thinking about looking after the environment, if all plant life sent a homicide warning humanity embark on a global defoliation campaign, wiping out all plants except for those kept in controlled oxygen production facilities. Although this would probably unite the world better than the plot of Watchmen.
The worst parts of The Happening are the ones that would be good scenes in a better film; they are depressing to watch as you can see the potential for something unnerving shining through. The aforementioned street of hanging people is one example. Two other examples are when everyone in the park suddenly freeze (undermined because of the weak reasoning), and when cars of fleeing people meet up at a crossroads from all four directions (undermined by how they just stand around in the open despite all the trees nearby).
I suppose I'll just finish up with the joke that no doubt everyone has come up with independently: for a film called The Happening, nothing much happens. Comedy gold.
Sunday, August 30, 2009
Another Cool Concept Ruined
Sometimes films feature antiheroes to be dark and edgy. Other times the hero is made to be actually bad to make some subversive point or just to screw with the audiences preconceived ideas. And then there's the designated hero.
This abomination of poor design occurs when the character in question is said out to be heroic but fails to act this way. David, the protagonist of the movie Jumper, is exceptionally guilty of this. He is supposed to be a good guy but comes off worse than the two villains.
After learning of his ability to teleport he starts robbing banks. Now I'm sure a lot of people would do just the same thing (I probably would too) and by itself bank theft doesn't make David a horrible hero, just a flawed character with all too human urges. If only this was the end.
A timeskip later David his shown having amassed quite a fortune, but this doesn't stop him from petty shoplifting. In almost any other circumstance one could at least argue that it is more convenient to break into a shop in England than return to your home in America for a change of clothes.....but David can freaking teleport. Fairly easily as well. There'll be more on old Davy's broken morals but lets follow his faults as the film shows them.
Perhaps angered by a bad film with a good concept, Samuel motherfucking Jackson enters scene left and curbstomps David. And what does our intrepid hero do now that he is aware of someone who knows who and what he is AND wants to kill him? David proceeds to go back to his hometown and pick up his old flame Millie. So he's a tactical genius as well as a morally upright person.
David and Millie go to Rome. There's nothing like attempted assassination to put you in the mood for a foreign holiday. They also take a commercial air plane. Well David's keeping his power secret right? Too bad he didn't hesitate to hide it when he was showing up an old bully.
Another jumper Griffin soon enters the story to save David from some Paladins and deliver cold but sensible advice. Never one to miss an opportunity at being an ass our hero interferes with Griffin's plans and compromises his secret base.
Things get ugly and the Paladins capture Millie. Griffin plans to blow them all up but David stops him; this is traditional hero behaviour. What's not traditional behaviour is deliberately trapping your opponent on a giant powerline. Apparently David wasn't opposed to Griffin killing several people cold bloodedly, just that his girlfriend would be killed as well.
Leaving Griffin to an unknown fate David confronts Samuel motherfucking Jackson and teleports him to the middle of nowhere with no way of contacting anyone. David claims to be 'sparing' him and that he is 'different' [from Griffin and other jumpers]. Theft, being an accessory to murder, and manslaughter are apparently fine but our illustrious protagonist draws the line at outright murder. Touching.
The sad thing is that with some effort either Griffin or the Paladins could have been made into much better heroes. Griffin, and by extension other jumpers, could have been shown as tragic individuals, constricted by laws and concepts enforced by a society that this below them. Alternatively the Paladins could have be shown to be (also) tragic figures, fighting a losing battle against hedonistic beings that upset the foundations of civilisation and science.
But instead we get David, a moron who is supposed to fulfil our fantasies while also being a clichéd movie hero, who manages to successfully do neither.
This abomination of poor design occurs when the character in question is said out to be heroic but fails to act this way. David, the protagonist of the movie Jumper, is exceptionally guilty of this. He is supposed to be a good guy but comes off worse than the two villains.
After learning of his ability to teleport he starts robbing banks. Now I'm sure a lot of people would do just the same thing (I probably would too) and by itself bank theft doesn't make David a horrible hero, just a flawed character with all too human urges. If only this was the end.
A timeskip later David his shown having amassed quite a fortune, but this doesn't stop him from petty shoplifting. In almost any other circumstance one could at least argue that it is more convenient to break into a shop in England than return to your home in America for a change of clothes.....but David can freaking teleport. Fairly easily as well. There'll be more on old Davy's broken morals but lets follow his faults as the film shows them.
Perhaps angered by a bad film with a good concept, Samuel motherfucking Jackson enters scene left and curbstomps David. And what does our intrepid hero do now that he is aware of someone who knows who and what he is AND wants to kill him? David proceeds to go back to his hometown and pick up his old flame Millie. So he's a tactical genius as well as a morally upright person.
David and Millie go to Rome. There's nothing like attempted assassination to put you in the mood for a foreign holiday. They also take a commercial air plane. Well David's keeping his power secret right? Too bad he didn't hesitate to hide it when he was showing up an old bully.
Another jumper Griffin soon enters the story to save David from some Paladins and deliver cold but sensible advice. Never one to miss an opportunity at being an ass our hero interferes with Griffin's plans and compromises his secret base.
Things get ugly and the Paladins capture Millie. Griffin plans to blow them all up but David stops him; this is traditional hero behaviour. What's not traditional behaviour is deliberately trapping your opponent on a giant powerline. Apparently David wasn't opposed to Griffin killing several people cold bloodedly, just that his girlfriend would be killed as well.
Leaving Griffin to an unknown fate David confronts Samuel motherfucking Jackson and teleports him to the middle of nowhere with no way of contacting anyone. David claims to be 'sparing' him and that he is 'different' [from Griffin and other jumpers]. Theft, being an accessory to murder, and manslaughter are apparently fine but our illustrious protagonist draws the line at outright murder. Touching.
The sad thing is that with some effort either Griffin or the Paladins could have been made into much better heroes. Griffin, and by extension other jumpers, could have been shown as tragic individuals, constricted by laws and concepts enforced by a society that this below them. Alternatively the Paladins could have be shown to be (also) tragic figures, fighting a losing battle against hedonistic beings that upset the foundations of civilisation and science.
But instead we get David, a moron who is supposed to fulfil our fantasies while also being a clichéd movie hero, who manages to successfully do neither.
Monday, August 24, 2009
Gantz: It's Elfen Lied without the mood whiplash
Frequently I feel that I should update this blog only to realise that I've got nothing worth posting. Critics would point out that this hasn't stopped me in the past but fortunately having no readers means having no critics. Yes! Pyrrhic victory!
With no inspiration I guess I'm just left with the two things that I can go on about long after people stopped caring: complaining about WoW and 'reviewing' anime. So let's do this.
1) WoW
Seriously, who's idea was it to give rogues an AoE attack?
2) Anime
I'd finished watching the series Gantz several weeks ago and had intended on talking about it but hadn't in the hopes that I'd come up with something better instead. So enjoy mediocrity.
The basic premise of Gantz is that when people die this black sphere called Gantz copies and conscripts them onto an alien fighting team. If they survive then they can go back home and live their life like nothing happened until the next time. If they die, game over.
That's the show in a nutshell, and conceptually it seems pretty cool. But just like communism, what works in theory does not always work in practise.
Gantz, like a lot of anime, has terrible action scenes. And like a lot of anime, the action is fairly central. What distinguishes Gantz from the rest is that it excels at failing. Dragon Ball Z, Naruto and Bleach have got nothing on this series. 'How?' you gasp as your monocle falls off, possible into a glass of champagne. Let's see:
-As I've mentioned previously Gantz acts like a manga/comic in that time essentially stops for the characters to speak;
-The characters seem incapable of remembering that they have guns, and so fights are drawn out for as long as it takes them to remember what they are holding onto;
-Adding onto the last point, the characters also seem to be unable to take any action without discussing it. This would be acceptable if their plans were complex but really they all basically boil down to 'shoot the alien, don't get killed';
-The animation just isn't that good. Now I don't need motion picture quality pictures but Gantz is just unpleasant. The show does all the classics: recycled animation, shots where it's just people shooting, awkward no fluid movement etc.
I could go on but I've got other ground to cover.
I'm used to bad fight scenes in TV and anime (I practically expect it) and can ignore it if there's a good plot, deep characters, whatever. Too bad Gantz doesn't swing that way. Once again like far too much anime out there, the characters are shallow and the dialogue just doesn't feel natural (even taking translation into account).
Onto the good points (sort of).
Initially my favourite part of the 26 episode show were the scenes in the waiting room when the newcomers and surviving players all teleport in. While I thought these could be interesting scenes, the aforementioned wooden dialogue lets them down.
It doesn't help that the characters are all terminally stupid, as the survivors consistently fail to explain the situation and the newcomers are all strawman doubters despite being seeing people getting teleported in from the head down.
Finally, as I'm running rather long, this show has a high body count. Seriously high. Most of the cast are red shirts, and the rest are wearing mauve and feeling worried. In a better show this would create some brilliant suspense but given Gantz quality you can't bring yourself to care enough.
However if you do get attached to anyone, prepare to be saddened at some point. I found myself liking a pair of characters and hoped that they'd never resolve their relationship little plot point, because that was the only thing keeping them alive.
It's a shame that Gantz sucks so much because the premise is interesting and it can be taken in many directions. The series could have been about straight adrenaline-pumping action, or the players trying to cope with the surreal double life, or even an exploration into existence and meaning. Instead it tries for all and sucks so hard that light cannot escape it.
Perhaps in several decades when Gantz is basically forgotten someone will plagiarise it and make what should have been.
With no inspiration I guess I'm just left with the two things that I can go on about long after people stopped caring: complaining about WoW and 'reviewing' anime. So let's do this.
1) WoW
Seriously, who's idea was it to give rogues an AoE attack?
2) Anime
I'd finished watching the series Gantz several weeks ago and had intended on talking about it but hadn't in the hopes that I'd come up with something better instead. So enjoy mediocrity.
The basic premise of Gantz is that when people die this black sphere called Gantz copies and conscripts them onto an alien fighting team. If they survive then they can go back home and live their life like nothing happened until the next time. If they die, game over.
That's the show in a nutshell, and conceptually it seems pretty cool. But just like communism, what works in theory does not always work in practise.
Gantz, like a lot of anime, has terrible action scenes. And like a lot of anime, the action is fairly central. What distinguishes Gantz from the rest is that it excels at failing. Dragon Ball Z, Naruto and Bleach have got nothing on this series. 'How?' you gasp as your monocle falls off, possible into a glass of champagne. Let's see:
-As I've mentioned previously Gantz acts like a manga/comic in that time essentially stops for the characters to speak;
-The characters seem incapable of remembering that they have guns, and so fights are drawn out for as long as it takes them to remember what they are holding onto;
-Adding onto the last point, the characters also seem to be unable to take any action without discussing it. This would be acceptable if their plans were complex but really they all basically boil down to 'shoot the alien, don't get killed';
-The animation just isn't that good. Now I don't need motion picture quality pictures but Gantz is just unpleasant. The show does all the classics: recycled animation, shots where it's just people shooting, awkward no fluid movement etc.
I could go on but I've got other ground to cover.
I'm used to bad fight scenes in TV and anime (I practically expect it) and can ignore it if there's a good plot, deep characters, whatever. Too bad Gantz doesn't swing that way. Once again like far too much anime out there, the characters are shallow and the dialogue just doesn't feel natural (even taking translation into account).
Onto the good points (sort of).
Initially my favourite part of the 26 episode show were the scenes in the waiting room when the newcomers and surviving players all teleport in. While I thought these could be interesting scenes, the aforementioned wooden dialogue lets them down.
It doesn't help that the characters are all terminally stupid, as the survivors consistently fail to explain the situation and the newcomers are all strawman doubters despite being seeing people getting teleported in from the head down.
Finally, as I'm running rather long, this show has a high body count. Seriously high. Most of the cast are red shirts, and the rest are wearing mauve and feeling worried. In a better show this would create some brilliant suspense but given Gantz quality you can't bring yourself to care enough.
However if you do get attached to anyone, prepare to be saddened at some point. I found myself liking a pair of characters and hoped that they'd never resolve their relationship little plot point, because that was the only thing keeping them alive.
It's a shame that Gantz sucks so much because the premise is interesting and it can be taken in many directions. The series could have been about straight adrenaline-pumping action, or the players trying to cope with the surreal double life, or even an exploration into existence and meaning. Instead it tries for all and sucks so hard that light cannot escape it.
Perhaps in several decades when Gantz is basically forgotten someone will plagiarise it and make what should have been.
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
RAGE!
Having just been curb stomped by the Alliance repetitively I'm filled with righteous fury. I'm not going to type hateful anti-WoW post raging at the unbalanced classes and teams because it would just degenerate into barely coherent bitching that everything is against and it's not just that I suck (that is a factor though). Instead I'm going to talk about something completely unrelated.
So what was the point of the previous paragraph? Well it gave me some time to cool off and get over how immensely unfair PVP can be. Fucking Paladins.
Mostly over.
Moving along, today I'll be reviewing FLCL and using the tradition structure of: vague summary, unnecessary attacks on the producer, subjective statements on how I'd make it better, no rating.
FLCL is essentially the Japanese take on Looney Tunes. There's plenty of fourth wall humour, art shifts and in true anime style there's some sort of vaguely explained plot involving aliens, robots, and alien robots. It's the type of show that people struggle to effectively describe and thus resort to saying "It's like X but on drugs."
Third from the right is actually the main character
The brief series is visually pleasing; it's smooth, interesting and at times rather clever. But this really shouldn't be a surprise as FLCL was made by none other than the infamous Gainax, and one thing Gainax is know for is good looking animation (when they can afford it).
Of course Gainax is also known for having plenty of sexual insecurity/frustration present in their dysfunction characters and FLCL is no exception, as the protagonist develops an affection for his abusive room mate whilst his brother's girlfriend develops some sort of clingy dependance on him. Good wholesome fun.
(I've come to believe that Gainax is actually a robot locked in an animation studio's basement who is trying to understand the concept of love)
As I've already mentioned, FLCL is the sort of show people describe with terms like 'trippy' or 'weird'; subjective, not particularly enlightening words and phrases. And is FLCL weird? Yes and no.
In comparison to a realistic or serious show of course it is; robots emerge from the head of the protagonist, one character revs her guitar like a chainsaw and swings it like a bat and so forth. The series is like Lost in a sense. Weird stuff happens but the feeling the viewers gets is not so much "what is going on? I'm so confused" but more of a "this isn't going to get resolved well".
Ordinarily I would be rather disappointed in lack of off the wall craziness I was promised, but FLCL as I didn't have particularly high hopes for it to begin with. Plus with only 6 20 minute episodes it's not like I was really invested in the series, which I suppose translates to watch FLCL if there's nothing better on.
Mostly over.
Moving along, today I'll be reviewing FLCL and using the tradition structure of: vague summary, unnecessary attacks on the producer, subjective statements on how I'd make it better, no rating.
FLCL is essentially the Japanese take on Looney Tunes. There's plenty of fourth wall humour, art shifts and in true anime style there's some sort of vaguely explained plot involving aliens, robots, and alien robots. It's the type of show that people struggle to effectively describe and thus resort to saying "It's like X but on drugs."
Third from the right is actually the main characterThe brief series is visually pleasing; it's smooth, interesting and at times rather clever. But this really shouldn't be a surprise as FLCL was made by none other than the infamous Gainax, and one thing Gainax is know for is good looking animation (when they can afford it).
Of course Gainax is also known for having plenty of sexual insecurity/frustration present in their dysfunction characters and FLCL is no exception, as the protagonist develops an affection for his abusive room mate whilst his brother's girlfriend develops some sort of clingy dependance on him. Good wholesome fun.
(I've come to believe that Gainax is actually a robot locked in an animation studio's basement who is trying to understand the concept of love)
As I've already mentioned, FLCL is the sort of show people describe with terms like 'trippy' or 'weird'; subjective, not particularly enlightening words and phrases. And is FLCL weird? Yes and no.
In comparison to a realistic or serious show of course it is; robots emerge from the head of the protagonist, one character revs her guitar like a chainsaw and swings it like a bat and so forth. The series is like Lost in a sense. Weird stuff happens but the feeling the viewers gets is not so much "what is going on? I'm so confused" but more of a "this isn't going to get resolved well".
Ordinarily I would be rather disappointed in lack of off the wall craziness I was promised, but FLCL as I didn't have particularly high hopes for it to begin with. Plus with only 6 20 minute episodes it's not like I was really invested in the series, which I suppose translates to watch FLCL if there's nothing better on.
Friday, August 14, 2009
Freaking Laws #1
Welcome to the first Freaking Laws. Although I don't currently have any plans for any more, there's a good chance in the future something will screw me over and make me want to do another one (also hopefully I can come up with a catchier name, preferably one that makes a cool acronym).
Before I get to my vaguely formed idea, here's some background. Whenever I want to find a new anime series or two, I follow a little procedure:
-Visit TV Tropes
-Look at Noteworthy Anime
-Pick interesting sounding names
-Read brief summaries
-Judge!
-Find torrents
-Download
-???
-PROFIT!
Unfortunately there sometimes is either a lack of torrents or a lack of people actually using the torrents. While this sometimes is caused by age or obscurity, more frequently this problem is caused by...LICENSING!
You see non-commenting readers, when an American company buys a license to an anime series/movie they can (legally) tell everyone sharing fan subs to GTFO. All the little fansites naturally do so, leaving only the faceless torrent archive sites to lift the burden (brave faceless souls). So if the fan sub is complete and there's enough demand for it, the torrent will survive despite illegality.
Tonight I proceeded to have none of that luck and found that the show I was after was currently impossible for me to obtain (within reason). Lame.
Then, a glimmer of hope, faintly shining in that way that only hope and dim lighting does. I noticed that the company that bought the license were streaming the series. Adequate.
This was not to be however, as the earlier paragraphs have hinted (wait, have I done this joke before?). Because I was not located in America I was not allowed to watch the stream because it wasn't licensed to Australia. I'll just let that sink in.
...
...
...
Due to licensing I can't download the show because it's licensed to America, but I can't watch it either because it isn't licensed to Australia. So basically American laws directly effect the English-speaking part of the internet. Freaking laws.
Before I get to my vaguely formed idea, here's some background. Whenever I want to find a new anime series or two, I follow a little procedure:
-Visit TV Tropes
-Look at Noteworthy Anime
-Pick interesting sounding names
-Read brief summaries
-Judge!
-Find torrents
-Download
-???
-PROFIT!
Unfortunately there sometimes is either a lack of torrents or a lack of people actually using the torrents. While this sometimes is caused by age or obscurity, more frequently this problem is caused by...LICENSING!
You see non-commenting readers, when an American company buys a license to an anime series/movie they can (legally) tell everyone sharing fan subs to GTFO. All the little fansites naturally do so, leaving only the faceless torrent archive sites to lift the burden (brave faceless souls). So if the fan sub is complete and there's enough demand for it, the torrent will survive despite illegality.
Tonight I proceeded to have none of that luck and found that the show I was after was currently impossible for me to obtain (within reason). Lame.
Then, a glimmer of hope, faintly shining in that way that only hope and dim lighting does. I noticed that the company that bought the license were streaming the series. Adequate.
This was not to be however, as the earlier paragraphs have hinted (wait, have I done this joke before?). Because I was not located in America I was not allowed to watch the stream because it wasn't licensed to Australia. I'll just let that sink in.
...
...
...
Due to licensing I can't download the show because it's licensed to America, but I can't watch it either because it isn't licensed to Australia. So basically American laws directly effect the English-speaking part of the internet. Freaking laws.
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