Epic

It's been too long since I've actually finished and published a post.
It seems like a weekly ritual that I must start typing something, my head swimming with awesome sounding sentences, only to realise that I have no idea how to tie the increasingly mundane sounding sentences together, and that my central idea is flawed and limited. And then I close the window and another draft is orphaned.

But enough of that, I want to talk about James Cameron's Avatar.
First off I'll say that I was pleasantly surprised by the film. I was well aware of the cliche storm (and in fact knew the entire plot) and was prepared for a long unnecessary film full of visuals that I would not care about. And I got all that I had expected: weak plot, stupid message, CG vistas.
But what I didn't expect was the level of quality. Everything may have been unoriginal but at least it was adequately done. For instance I initially groaned when there was a voice over at the start, but it had both an in universe reason (instead of say some all seeing disembodied voice) and was present through out the entire film (none of that very beginning and then very end when the audience has forgotten crap).
If I had to give it a rating on the fly, I'd say 3/5. Not worth the decade of work or deserving of the hype, but much better than I had expected.

Now that I've got that done, I can get to the meat of this post: discussing the setting. Bear with me, this will be awkward.
When you look at sci fi worlds you can often hazard a guess as to whether they are built around established rules and their consequences, or whether it just follows the rule of cool. Avatar is an interesting film as I think it was conceived as just a bunch of awesome ideas (floating mountains, world trees, pterodactyl mounts) that then had reasons made to hold them all together. It's contrived but it's better than no reason at all.

So the planet Pandora is rich with Unobtainium, which is a multi-purpose material that is incredibly valuable and a tradition trope of sci fi universe. The presence of this substance (I assume, it better be fucking canon or else they've got one hell of a contrived coincidence) allows the development of basically a tree-based network that connects living creatures, acts as a pseudo-afterlife, and contains an alien god-mind. It's the cross between the internet and the Farplane.

What's the problem then? Remember the end battle, with the military about to win only for the forces of nature to arrive and wreck their shit up. Sure it's a deus ex machina but at least there's some foreshadowing; it's not completely out of nowhere.

No what bothers me is this: how does Eywa communicate with all the predators? Does the wildlife just plug into trees in their spare time? One could argue that there was some sort of wireless communication but that completely undermines the whole premise of the bio-USB's and is not hinted at what so ever. It happens purely because the plot needs it to.

This same level of reasoning occurs in two other situations. The first is the mind transfer bit at the Tree of Souls. Apparently Pandora's plants can connect to the human mind via our skin, kind of like how when your put a book next to a TV, the story is shown on the screen. Fine I'll ignore this one, it only happens twice so it's not in your face all the time mocking logic. The next point is though: the freaking avatars.

The drivers get in their tanning beds, see some stock swirling vortexes, and then bam! they are controlling an alien body. How is this possible? Are their brainwaves being broadcast between bodies? If so wouldn't the floating mountains interfere? A side effect of this slopping planning/design is that it trivialises the whole Pandora USB thing. Who cares about wired stuff when there's wireless.
Something I don't understand is how this problem even came up. They could have made it that the drivers have to get body modifications done on them, namely a one of the neural links. The drivers could be hooked up to their avatar and transfer bodies. We'd lose the possibility of a driver being disconnected whilst in their avatar, but we'd gain the threat of their human body being killed when their are out playing space elves.

I came up with this in idea in like ten minutes; Avatar was being designed years ago. Go figure.

My Day at Supanova

Having just got back from Supanova, I decided it was a blog-worthy experience. Since I don't have a particularly good camera on my phone, I'll be providing MS Paint pictures to compliment the text. Enjoy.

The morning started low key, as there's only so much excitement a person can have when they have no real expectations except that a lot of money will be spent. My only concern was who was coming with me and how we would get there.

Several weeks earlier I had mentioned Supanova to my group of friends, and there had been plenty of agreement, even from people I know would not enjoy going. As the days past I would occasionally bring up the approaching event in conversation when relevant but never managed to get a definite answer of who was going.

Finally I posted on Facebook in a last attempt to get clear responses. All I really got was advice that it would be better to go on Sunday than Saturday. Fine fine I though, this group doesn't do organisation well. Or at all. Everything will be done on the fly then.

So Sunday. I kill several hours waiting for some sort of communication from someone. Nothing, no phone call, no email, no Facebook message. Eventually I spy Keiran online only to discover that he had no money and thus was not going. Given that he was one of the people I moved the date from Saturday (which was better for me) to Sunday, at that point I lost it a little.

Just a little.

At this point I resolved to go alone, and hope everyone else has an unpleasant bowel movement.

The next part was surprisingly simple. Getting there was quick, parking was effortless (although expensive), and the line moved deceptively fast. And inside lay Supanova, my first convention.

The first thing that struck me was how comparatively normal I was. If there was a normalcy scale from 1 to 10, even with my attire (all black with an Ergo Proxy shirt and my Trilby hat) I would score an 8, beaten only by people wearing completely normal clothes (9) and people dragged there by their significant others (10).

This was my first experience with cosplayers. As a closeted one myself, I could not decide whether these people are brave (for having the guts to make a spectacle of themselves) or just sad (for not understanding that just because you want to do something, doesn't mean that it is a good idea). I found I have a similar response to cosplayers as I did to prostitutes: I'm not comfortable starring directly at them even though I'm allowed to, and I have a strong urge to ask them where they went wrong in their lives.

I can't bash the cosplayers completely. While most of them were generic mainstream characters (I'm not sure whether I saw more Naruto or Bleach characters) and girls in outfits that they could not pull off, them were some good/interesting ones. Two that come to mind are the fairly awesome xenomorph outfit, and a girl that I think was dressed up like some sort of representation of GLaDOS.

I wish I had asked her...

The sheer amount of people proved to be rather daunting so I sought out higher ground to get a good view of the entire convention. At this point I spied the guest autograph signing area and more importantly, Summer Glau. Not content to wait in the massive line, I nonchalantly edged towards the table. At about four metres I burst into a sprint, leapt the table, scooped up the rather startled actress and flew off into the sky. At about this point the fantasy ended and I went to look at more shops.

Not pictured: actual events.

Whilst wondering aimlessly I encountered some sort of Nintendo booth, complete with No More Heroes 2. After playing a Ranked battle and impressing at least one 12 year old, the nice lady at the counter informed me that I could buy the game for $25. given that I had bought the game several weeks earlier for around $80, I died a little inside.

After the monetary loss by technicality, to check out the Madman booth again for potential bargains. Naturally there was none as the only things that are ever cheap in life are things I already own. Since my quest for cheaper DVD's had been a complete failure, I bought Darker than Black and Rebuild of Evangelion 1.11 (at a slight discount when I mentioned that I already had bought the earlier edition). Why? Because like France I'm always ready to concede. Yeah that's right, I went there.

Aware that there was probably other stuff I'd like to see/buy, I decided to leave. With no one to make witty observations to, I didn't have enough interest to plunge into the crowds. But I left with a resolution, that I would return in several years time, only this time I'd have more money and a better group of friends. And it would be awesome.

To be continued...

Total spending:
$25 entry
$12 parking
$75 Darker than Black
$20 Rebuild of Eva 1.11

Wherein I like to use the word wherein

I should continue to set up my shiny new Facebook account, but frankly I hate where everything is and how it works so instead I'm going to do a blog post ie this one you are reading right now.

And hello I suppose to any newcomers via Facebook. Welcome to a world where quality is an afterthought at best.

This morning I finally got around to finishing Shadow of the Colossus. For those who don't pay attention to the pretentious video game culture, SotC is a PS2 game that apparently is one of God's children and doesn't get enough praise.

Ok I'll admit that looks awesome

The player character Wanda/Wander travels to a bleak land to raise a girl from the dead. To do so he is set the task of slaying the sixteen colossi. That's about all the plot for the majority of the game.
The gameplay is fairly simple as well. You trek through a vast, almost lifeless land till you find the colossus you're after. Combat consists of you climbing on the bastards to get to their weak points and commence stabbing. If the name didn't clue you in on it, the colossus for the most point are BIG:


After you work out the trick to scaling and killing a colossus you are are sent back to the central temple where you are given your next target. And that's pretty much the entire game. The only other thing to do in the big wide world is to hunt for lizards and fruit which get really small increases to your maximum grip and health gauges respectively, but that's only there for obsessive completionists and people who want to survive on hard mode.

Minimalism is pretty much the theme of SotC. The visuals of muted, the music is absent when you are exploring the world, and the dialogue is present only briefly. Not that any of this is a bad thing. The stark simplicity gives the game a unique feel and identity.

This is why SotC is so fondly reminisced about by many critics and gamers. What I don't like is how everyone forgets the game's flaws in light of this style.

Really there is only one relevant flaw, one that makes in anything else (awkward camera and horse handling, and the occasional physics glitches) fade in comparison. When you are climbing along the colossi, they will thrash around in an attempt to throw you off. Fair enough, I'd try my hardest to get a spider that was on back off. While they are doing this, Wanda can only hold on tight and wait for the colossus to stop. This prevents you from climbing further or charging up a stab.
Where I lose my patience is that there is sometimes little if any time between thrashes. All you can do is hang on and watch your grip bar slowly decrease, which naturally causes you to fall when it reaches zero. Several of the fights were dragged out purely because I wasn't getting an opening to attack. And this soured the SotC experience for me.

I can't get excited about an epic fight to the death because I know the last five minutes will be me hanging onto a giant's head and screaming in frustration. I can't feel saddened about the dead colossi in the end credits either.

I'm not saying that the entire game is ruined, but between the flaws and the internet's over-hyping, I just can't appreciate Shadow of the Colossus as much as everyone else.

Wherein I talk about trivial matters

When I signed up to Twitter I had the idea of doing mini-posts, only to discover the whole 140 character limit. I was hesitant to do it here cause it seems like a kind of tease, similar to how you are playing a game only for the the end boss and credits to jump out at like the two hour mark or something.
I'm going to do it anyway though, cause I've got vague thoughts and no one to humour me in real time.

Idle thought number one

Rebuild of Evangelion 2.0 was finally released on DVD in Japan, so I'm downloading what I hope is a subbed rip. What I can't grasp is how Gainax seems to hate money and success.

1.0 was released in Japan in 2007 (screenings) and 2008 (DVD). It wasn't until 2009 that Australia got it on DVD. Now I could except this for an unknown movie or even one of middle-level popularity, but this is the anime equivalent of Watchmen; they should be getting this out as fast as possible.

Gainax, like a lot of Japanese companies, do favour the whole updated release thing which is suppose does milk money out of obsessive fans and collectors....like me.

The other cause for my bafflement at Gainax is the absence of inducing nostalgia. Other franchises have got nostalgia generation down to an art.
Recent Legend of Zelda games have made a habit of squeezing in music from previous games, Motoko Kusanagi can't go a movie/season without jumping off a tall building and cloaking midfall, and most of the Metal Gear series seems to be call backs to earlier instalments.

But despite remaking the original series in glorious high budget detail, no one has truly tried to deliberately get the fanbase screaming. Where are the homages and shout outs to iconic elements (actual plots and characters in the remake don't count).

Really the point of the last two paragraphs has been these two questions; where is a new version of Cruel Angel Thesis? and where is a new version of Fly Me to the Moon? They should be big and dramatic and orchestral. Look at what FF7's One Winged Angel has done to a generation. Evangelion could do that too. Twice!

Idle thought number two

Can't remember anymore.

Finally

Ghost in the Shell.
...
...
...
Christ this will be tough. For convenience I will be assuming that you the reader are familiar with GitS and will not hesitate to spoil anything from the movies or TV seasons.

The Ghost in the Shell franchise generates a good deal of ambivalence for me. There are parts that I really love and parts that I really hate. The two sides meet, cancel out, and leave me unable to decide how feel about the series.

GitS in some ways is a return to science fiction's roots, ie showing the effect of new technologies on society. But unlike the sci fi of many decades ago it still tells a story and doesn't let itself get bogged down in intricacies of how it all works (that's the philosophy's job).
Naturally there are many plot points based off the impact of cyberbrains but GitS really shines in the subtleties when it doesn't draw your attention.
The most common example would be simply all the times when anyone casually communicates via what is essentially telepathy. A more awesome example is in the end of the first film. The snipers have lasers that are invisible to normal eyes, so they can have laser sights without alerting the target (unless their eyes can also see them). Simple but clever.

The counter point to the above is the philosophy, the deeper effects of a world full of robotic bodies and mind-hacking. For starters, it just isn't well implemented. There are occasions where someone (usually the Major) either asks a vague question or stares off into the distance, despite it being not the appropriate time (in either the plot or pacing).
Look at the first film again; Section 9 have just apprehended a victim of the Puppet Master and then everything is put on hold for the Major to go for a swim.
Innocence has what I can only believe is a parody of this guerrilla philosophy in the scene where Batou and Togusa are investigating the remains of the gynoid. The doctor present begins to talk all deeply about dolls for no good reason while Togusa just tries to get straight answers and Batou ignores both of them. To me, Togusa's exasperation and the doctor's tangential musings can only be a self aware joke by Production IG. Which makes it worse because that means they are aware of the awkwardly wielded philosophy.

Often tied into the philosophy in GitS is the politics. It generates obstacles and antagonists, and often leaves Section 9 struggling between what's right legally and right morally. What it doesn't do is be interesting.
All the politicians are the the 'Director of X' or the 'Such-and-such Minister'. Their motives are generally personal gain and their beliefs are either vague or outright unknown. They tend to be devices and contrivances more than characters and most disappear into irrelevance as quickly as they came.
What baffles me is how dull the politics is in GitS. The setting is perfect for it and the philosophical questions that get raised could be expressed in a smoother fashion. If some of the political groups or leaders were properly upgraded to the status of secondary characters and given some depth beyond 'nuisance' I think GitS could turn one of its weaknesses into a strength. Here's an example of what I mean:
Cyberbrains and cyborg bodies are divisive issues I'll call X and Y respectively; from here we can create four generalised viewpoints;

-'Luddites', Anti-X, Anti-Y: this group is full of those that feel threatened by the new tech. They feel that one loses their humanity and individuality the more cyberised they become.
-'Futurists', Pro-X, Pro-Y: this group is all about improving oneself, removing limitations, pushing the boundaries. The new tech is another step for society and personal freedom.
-'Instrumentalists', Pro-X, Anti-Y: like the futurists, this group is all about taking humanity to what they believe to be the next step. However they view the next step as only involving freeing the mind and dealing with cyberspace. To them any sort of physical body is a hassle,a distraction and something that will eventually be obsolete.
-'Realists', Anti-X, Pro-Y: this group is the inversion of the instrumentalists. Cyberbrains are the threat to humanity and cyborg bodies are the way of the future.

And there's four new factions who each have more depth than the majority of the ones in GitS. From here you could also weave philosophical ideas into the plot more smoothly; eg when dealing with some radical futurists that are now indistinguishable from androids the question of what constitutes a person could be raised. It beats having the Tachikomas do it at least.

Things a feeling a little too negative so let's look at another positive: the animation. I know it's shallow in comparison to the above but it must be said. GitS looks good, in all its animated forms. Quality is often related to budget and so it is natural that a popular franchise such as this will have more money to spend on the visuals than a lesser known show. But what makes GitS great and worth mentioning here is the fluidity of the animation, which in to me is more important than the actual level of detail.
All too frequently in anime there are moments that can only be described as wonky or awkward, which mostly occur in action scenes. It's the times when the characters gracelessly shift stances or casually ignore conventional time or motion. This tends to be a result of adapting straight from manga, as the panels will only show the important actions, and the movement in between is left unknown.
Getting back to the topic on hand, GitS rises above this to frequent fault. And in the action scenes it really shows. If only the action was a bit more frequent.

For a long time when I thought of Ghost in the Shell, I thought of it as primarily action, but with depth behind it. But as time progressed I realised I was getting the proportions of the genres wrong. GitS is not an franchise about gun play, it's just that sometimes the philosophy leads to someone firing a shot.
While typing this was going to say that GitS needs more fighting less talking, and then attempt to come up a valid explanation about why I know more than the makers of a wildly successful franchise. But then it hit me; GitS doesn't need more action, it needs more suspense.
Let's look at the episode in 2nd GiG where Section 9 has to take down the rogue military helicopters: I was thinking "this looks great" and "yes finally some action", not "oh I hope they make it out alright".
I say this because I've recently been re-watching Death Note and there are times were you're not sure who's going to come out on top and how. And this is mostly when characters are just talking, so when there's car chases and explosions involved it is even more intense. Whereas the dialogue in GitS is informative but dry.

Tied to this lack of suspense is the characters. They are a bunch of super skilled counter terrorists, equipped with cutting edge technology, and against direct conflict they are basically never threatened. Section 9's real threat is bureaucracy, which like Superman's Kriptonite is kinda lame.
The Major Motoko Kusanagi is an issue all by herself. She's the most talented (better than the rest except in their specialised fields), most knowledgeable (able to quote obscure philosophy to ease) and most focused (remains professional almost always) member of Section 9; she's practically a Mary Sue. The Major's only real flaws are her disconnectedness to humanity and slight psychotic tendencies. These sound like they are fairly major (no pun intended) but are downplayed considerably: her disconnectedness never seems to interfere with predicting how people behave and the psychosis shows up so very rarely and briefly.

Batou and Togusa bother me as well, but for a lesser reason. In comparison to the Major they are more rounded individuals but the plot treats them like devices. Batou's purpose seems to be to fail so the Major can succeed, to the point that he needs her assistance in a Batou-focused episode (the one with Angel's Feathers). Similarly Togusa mostly gets attention when the plot Section 9 needs to fail or at least be challenged, and what better way to do that than with the soft fleshy human.

Despite saying all this I still like ghost in the Shell; it's better than much of the anime out there. What I can't decide is whether it is a good show that could be great. or whether I just want it to be something it's not.

PS Although the date says the 9th, this was actually finished on the 22nd. Make of this what you will.

PSP Shenanigans: A True Story

I don't want to do my TAFE work so let's hear about a frustrating chapter of my recent life.

Ever since I'd sold my Gameboy Colour several years ago, I had not had any real desire to get any kind of portable console. My Ipod was enough in most circumstances and there were rarely games that caught my eye anyway.

Last year though I became aware of Dissidia: Final Fantasy, a fighting game which pitted the mian hero and villain of the first 10 games in the series against one another. It had the two thing I like in my fighting games: recognisable characters and unconventional gameplay.

But alas Dissida was PSP only and there was no real chance of it being ported (games only get ported from consoles I own, not to). As any person with basic comprehension will have figured out, I bought a PSP.

Realising I just spent several hundred dollars for a single game, I looked for others in an attmept to justify my purchase (although Dissidia did get me through Brisbane with my family so it has been fairly worthwhile).

On the suggestion of internet personalities I like, I bought Castlevania: Dracula X Chronicles. The downside with this is that it is a remake of game from era when games were still at ridiculous arcade difficultly, and so I'll probably never finish this. It did come with Symphony of the Night which was decent.

So it was around this point I decided I should actually do some research on the console I bought several months earlier cause I'm all about careful planning. Turns out that the PSP is the loser by far in comparison to the DS. It has a weaker battery life and game library. Just like with the N64 I made my choice and it was the wrong one.

Only recently a lot of my friends have been getting into mod chips for their DS's. Why don't I do the same I thought. Well I can't because my PSP is a 3000 with version 5.5 on it, and no one can hack that. Oh boy, things just keep going my way (irony).

And that's basically where I am now. Really the only good thing about the PSP is that it is region free so I can get games from the US and Japan. If only there was something particularly worth while.

PS I apoligise for all the dryness between the few interesting parts.

Steam Sale Conclusion

It's been almost several months but here we are at the end. One last post to bring all the games together in comparison and then let's never speak of this again.

Even before I finished all 10 games I had begun to try and rate them only to discover that I was more lenient the less I remembered about the game. This raised the question, what's a better indication of a game's quality? The recent memories of me frothing at the mouth over bad controls/camera angles/etc, or the more distant memories where the emotions attached have faded.

A more forgiving person would probably pick the latter as there would hopefully be less rage-induced bias but for me that just raises another issues: do the games deserve to be critiqued in a calm rational way. After all, the frustrating gameplay is still there, I just can't recall it as well anymore.

So here's the not-definitive-by-any-means-but-don't-expect-any-better final ratings:

10 - Painkiller

As the only game I couldn't bring myself to finish, Painkiller receives the very shameful ten. Seriously, who designs a boss fight to have several unavoidable parts where you take fall damage? When I'm more afraid of the physics than the giant flying demon, something is just plain wrong.

9 - Indigo Prophecy

I liked the premise and I was open to the interactive movie thing; too bad the premise went off the deep end and the gameplay was just badly implemented. When I encounter bad story/characters/setting I can get over it if the actual gameplay is good enough, and vice versa. This game obviously had neither and practically collapsed on itself while I watched with morbid fascination.

Here's where things get hard. Do I rate the remainders based on my initial feelings or current ones? What about originality? Is a game that tries to do something new but fails better than something that one that sticks to a formula and succeeds? Is replayability a factor?

8 - Eufloria

I'm actually a little surprised I put this here. The aesthetics were pleasing, so pleasing that they caused me to remember there's really nothing more to this game. No tactical depth, no evolution, no plot, no characters, no emotion. Eufloria is like some strange drug; you are doing something fairly boring for many hours, but you just don't care and you keep going back to do it some more.

7 - Beyond Good and Evil

I really want to put this higher because it has actual characters and tries to do something to my emotions unlike many of the games further down which seem to be excuse plots filled with 2 dimensional people. But then I remember the dull melee combat, awkward vehicle driving, and broken stealth. If only BGaE had had more focus instead of trying to be so many different things.

6 - Torchlight

I've put this game at 6. I've also played 53 hours according to Steam (I really want those last few achievements dammit). Two statements shouldn't go together but here we are. Torchlight shouldn't be above BGaE but that's what happens when your gameplay ain't broke. It may just be a pretty looking 'make numbers bigger' simulator but at least it works.

5 - Command and Conquer: Red Alert 3

RA3 gets this position by the virtue of being the last game left to place. There are no glaring flaws and no shining brilliance. It does have the advantage of having a lot more cash to toy with than basically all the other games bar Mirror's Edge, but this is countered by huge amount of nostalgia I have for earlier C&C games.

4 - Braid

I wish I could come up with a good reason why this game should be placed lower but I can't. As frustrating as I found the late game, I can't fault it for being difficult (except for a few parts that were just plain unintuitive). Despite the frequent pretentiousness of both the game and its fanbase, the gameplay both functions and is not repetitive, which is something I can't say about the previous games listed.

3 - Mirror's Edge

The time spent playing ME was a combination of screaming at difficult sections, cursing at screwy programming, and cringing at the plot. What put this so far up (down?) the list is that one day I may decide to replay this game, which is something that I won't consider for some of the others here, including Braid.

2 - Trine

I went to the enough of getting every single achievement for this game. It in my eyes is fully completed and experienced, Trine has nothing more it can offer me. But like Mirror's Edge I can see the possibility in a year or two of going back and playing it again. It also helps that there are no massive flaws in the game. Trine is the Mario, an all rounder in various stats/features, and in this instance that proves to make it the better than most.

1 - World of Goo

Things were always in WoG's favour. Where every other game was an unknown to some extent, WoG was something I had played and finished in the past but wanted to own for myself. It also has the honour of having a second post to make up for deficiencies in the first one. Other games probably needed that treatment but I didn't feel guilty enough to do one. I could mention actual features of the game which I think earn it the number one place but I'd prefer to go anecdotal. When I finish a good game I get a little sad as there is no more for me to play. Of the 10 games, only World of Goo caused this to happen and that is why it is in first place.