Wherein I talk about prequels, remakes and why FF8 probably shouldn't have one

People who have had to put up with my complaining over the years are probably aware of my dislike of prequels, which I see as self indulgent and unnecessary.

We already know how it's already going to turn out so there's no tension and how the pieces got into that position is generally not interesting enough to warrant a direct telling. One of the things I like about A Song of Ice and Fire is that the rebellion before the first novel is slowly filled in through dialogue as characters bring up various events. We get the key notes for a story without actually having to go through the entire thing (and given that this is George RR Martin it would be a doorstopper).

Furthermore prequels can't meaningfully add to the world, as any new characters and places have to be gone in some way or another by the end otherwise we'll be left with plot holes when we get to the original work. So you really can't meaningfully expand the world, merely stretch what's already there.

Remakes are very similar. Instead of new content that is largely irrelevant, it's just the original content again, and so we know what's going to happen (probably). Seriously was there any good reason for the American remakes of Let the Right One In or Funny Games (did we even need the original Funny Games)?

But remakes are not without merit, if the intent isn't just to use the work as an easy source of already created material. They can be used as a reinterpretation, taking the source material in a different direction (eg the Rebuild of Evangelion series) or style/tone (The Thing). The intent could also be to improve accessibility of the source material, bringing the advances of time into past fiction. Of course this doesn't always work, just look at Night of the Living Dead and it's two remakes that most zombie movie fans probably don't know of.

This works better for video games as the march of progress is a lot more significant for them than films, as the player's direct involvement can be improved. Look at Ocarina of Time 3D, it's got everything the original had as well as better polish, handling improvements and additional content.

And now we sorta get to my initial idea when I started this an hour or so ago: Final Fantasy 8 (also I'm over hyperlinking things). Now Sony has been making HD remakes of popular game series', but so far they've been sticking with PS2 games cause it's comparatively little effort for a lot of profit. But if they every decided to rehaul some PS1 games I sincerely hope they don't do FF8.

As a PS1 it really couldn't do both free camera 3d space and good detail, so to have a pretty pre-rendered background we had to make do with still camera angles which could be rather awkward (but atmospheric) in games like Resident Evil or Silent Hill.

As I've been replaying FF8 recently, I've had a chance to notice things that are foreshadowed earlier on. One such thing is the moon, which becomes a plot point of sorts later on. As with much nonrealistic Japanese stuff, the moon is freaking huge, so naturally a player will notice it from time to time, but maybe not just how frequently it pops up.

The reason for how the hell this is related to my above ramblings is that if hypothetically FF8 every became proper 3D, I fear the moon would lose some of it's mystique if you could just look up and the thing would be right there looming over you (don't get me wrong it'd look excellent), kind of like how monsters often lose some of their terror once you see them for what they are.

Now here's some pictures to distract from this unsatisfying ending.

It starts off tame.

Maybe it's just the angle...

...or not.

But not matter where you go...

...there it is.

To be fair, you'd expect it to be visible at the Lunar Gate.

I'm not sure if those are just clouds.

Also Lunatic Pandora (best gibberish name ever)

Ruckus and Nonsense

Good news there's something that bothers me enough to blog: Durarara!! and all it's failings in comparison to its predecessor, Bacanno!
First some brief details on Bacanno! (which I'm surprised I haven't blog about before).
It's set in the prohabition era of America and follows three plot lines (set in 1930, 1931 and 1932) simultaneously, with a large roster of interconnected characters, many whom are gangsters, immortals and/or dangerous psychos. In 1930 we watch as a couple bottles of immortality elixir swap hands while the owners try to track them down; in 1931 several gangs try to take the same train hostage with messy results; in 1932 nothing happens in a way that can be interestingly summarised.
Baccano! is an enjoyable experience of over the top action, eccentric characters and gratuitous violence, and I recommend it to anyone who might be interested.

All this makes Durarara!!'s flaws all the more annoying. You see both series were originally light novels by the same author, both are animated by the same studio, and it seems that both somehow inhabit the same universe.

Durarara!! once again follows a diverse cast but this time is set in modern Japan. There is a supernatural element, a headless rider, as well as a 'normal' character who none the less performs superhuman feats. I can't really sum up the plot because despite having more episodes than Baccano! Durarara!! manages to have less happen, which brings me to my first compliant:

• Nothing Fucking Happens: okay that's a slight exaggeration, there are story arcs, but in the time it takes to complete the first one, Baccano! has almost completed its three arcs at once. 'But Durarara!! is a different show with a different tone,' a hypothetical fan might say which suspiciously leads into my next point;

• The Tone Is Shit: discarding the ruckus of its predecessor Durarara!! adopts a slower, more philosophical tone. Who needs gun fights and fun when you can have teenagers angsting and stuff. Now I like me some philosophy and can sink my literary teeth into a weighty and ponderous sci fi novel if it's done well but as you can probably guess I don't think that's the case with this show. After all I didn't even realise it was supposed to be slower and more thoughtful at first, what with the scythe wielding rider and the Anonymous-style gang. I just assumed it was action or maybe a thriller, and if your audience doesn't know what it is supposed to be then you are doing it wrong;
  

• Terrible Narration: sometimes I dream of a world where 'show, not tell' is enforced as law, if nothing else it'd put a stop to lazy storytelling like narration. While Baccano! had some narration, it took place within the story as one character explained things to another. But Durarara!! just has several omniscient disembodied voices directly talking to the audience. And even there is some justification coming later (I haven't finished the the last arc yet) it doesn't excuse the quality. The narration is that awful kind that tells us all the things that it shouldn't be used for eg what the characters are thinking or feeling, or worse, things the audience can work out for themselves;

• Weak Characters: despite having alot more time dedicated to explaining their backstory, many of the characters are noticably flatter than Baccano!'s, feeling more like devices than people. The audience surrogate is bland even for the standards of audience surrogate characters but the biggest offender is the closest thing the series has to antagonist is worse. He's supposed to be this cunning information broker who trolls people and manipulates events just to cause chaos for the sake of it and yet I don't buy it. He's this way because that's his personality, it's just because that's what the plot requires;

• Undeserved Popularity: yeah I know this is subjective, but it's also what I feel strongest about (and actually is the cause for this entire post). Durarara!! was better received than Baccano! and that just makes me mad. You know how people talk about stuff being dumbed down to the masses, well here it is. The simultaneous plots have been removed cause people don't want to have to keep up, the violence is removed cause people are squeamish (okay fair enough on that point, not everyone likes faces grinded or fingers bitten off) , and the setting has moved to teenagers in modern Japan because people can't relate to things that are slightly different.

I'm never sure how to finish so I'll just make this bitter generalisation: the masses don't deserve good entertainment. Now I'm going go find something better to watch.

No seriously, there will be spoilers

While it's fresh in my mind, I'm going to discuss (laughably implying that you the reader have some degree of input) the movie Sucker Punch, which I only just saw.
Now while it should always be assumed that there are going to be spoilers I would like to stress this point more than usual, as in my usual egotistical style I'm going to talk about what bothered me and how it could have been fixed. After all who else knows what's objectively the best choices for a film than a 22 year old with no experience at anything commercially creative?

Don't answer that.

One of the things I liked about the first third or so was the ambiguity of it all. As the reality shifted I was initially unsure of what was happening exactly and so was forming various theories. At the time of the samurai fight I was wondering if every major event would shift to a different locale/style and maybe by the end everything would just suddenly fall neatly into place and be awesome in retrospect (like what Darker than Black did for me).
But then we go back to the brothel and you see the three layers and where they fit. So then I was hoping for something surreal to happen, that would throw a spanner in theory by being outside of the previously established rules. Hell, Total Recall had me less sure than SP.
Also I'm not counting the angel at the end, that was established in the opening monologue.

And then there's the end message. Having been denied some twist at around the lobotomy scene, I was hoping for some clever meaning behind everything. Instead SP ended with the conflicting message of 'you have what you need so fight' and the last two girls not having what they need so one has to be sacrificed.
Now one could argue that the point is that ultimately Babydoll will be happier this way, retreating into fantasy (maybe) from a world where everyone she loves is dead. But that's docilely accepting one's fate; fighting would be more of carving a new better place in the world. Instead Sweet Pea escapes because apparently she was the protagonist all along.

That's another point that really pisses me off. It's just so pretentious to be like 'haha you idiot viewers thought Babydoll was the protagonist, shows what you know, isn't this film clever and deep'. Regardless of what the film may claim, she is the protagonist. The plot follows her and her personal problems, the realities are fabricated by around her, and she is the one who gets the plan from the freaking angel.

I'm getting tired now so I'll wrap things up with the last main point I can think of. The action needs some work in my mind. The girls are an unstoppable fighting force, which is perfectly acceptable it's a fantasy, but that also means that there's no tension in the scene.
As the scenes are abstractions there is also a lack of emotion to the scenes (your mileage may vary). Except for that one time, there aren't any hardships or personal triumphs or whatever because it's not really happening, and only Babydoll is privy to them anyway.
So what's left is just spectacle. Don't get me wrong, it's good spectacle, but without any threat to the characters or emotional weight it losses a lot.

And that's an incomprehensive post about what I didn't like about Sucker Punch.

PS: Too much slow motion while overly loud music plays.

Chaos

Like usual I haven't updated this blog in ages and so I'm starting this post talking about how I haven't updated. And now I'm talking about how I usually talk about it, which sadly isn't the first time it's happened. Before things more recursively meta let's just get to the point.

I had no idea in mind when I started this, no well thought out thesis about why something sucks and how everyone should listen to me. No this post is just going to be another one where I have several topics with no coherent train of thought between them. They're just stuff that I've been thinking about (and hopefully someone else wants to hear about).

(Like last time, some of you may have already heard me prattle on about these already)

First off: Just Cause 2, in particular the end.

JC2 is a sandbox, third person shooter with vehicles. If that sounds familiar to you it's because it's one of the most frequently used combination of genres in games at the moment. It's like unnecessary sequels for films in that they are both ridiculously common and hopefully in a decade we'll all shake our heads and laugh at how things were.

But I digress. You play as Rico Rodriguez, an unstoppable god-like action hero who works for the CIA the Agency. Rico is sent into the fictional Asian island nation of Panau which is run by an oppressive regime, to locate your fellow operative/mentor Tom Sheldon who has gone dark and possibly rogue. To track him down you must generate chaos to weaken the governments hold and win the trust of various terrorist factions.

Pictured: espionage

A couple story missions in and you find Sheldon who tells you that he had to go as deep undercover as possible as things are serious; you're just told to keep doing what your doing (fun enjoyable sandbox-based destruction).

Fast forward to the end and it's time to take down the dictator Panay and hopefully replace him with a US-friendly puppet. You seemingly take down Panay and then it turns out that it was all about oil. That's right oil (admittedly it's a lot of oil). Without Panay suddenly Russia, Japan and China are all making their move to try to get control before the US.

And then Panay (whose somehow still alive) launches a nuke at each of the four countries. For the last mission you must grapple onto and disable the nukes. For the last one Rico reprograms it (apparently that's possible) and sends it crashing into Panau's oilfield, destroying it so now one gets it. Rico, Sheldon and associates sit back content that there won't be a world war and I bang my head on the desk at the stupid third act.

There are several things that really irk me, and hopefully you too. The developers had all the pieces to make a coherent, adequately logic end story and then they sudden;y drank paint thinner and put it together wrong.
You'd think that since Sheldon had to go dark for big important information gathering it would be because he was trying to track down where the nukes were. That's reasonable, nuclear weapons are high stakes and anyone would be secretive about them. But no, he was just trying to track down Panay or something, and the nukes caught him and EVERYONE ELSE by surprise.

And then there's Rico taking out the oilfield. This pisses me off on every level, to the extent that if we added another level I would pissed off on that too. But enough tortured metaphors, there's a bad climax to criticise.
Firstly there's the obvious safety concern. Nuking an offshore oilfield (one with more oil than the rest of the world combined!) is not going to end well. Rico and co end the game sitting on a boat with their backs to a huge mushroom cloud, discussing what to do now. They figure that the Agency will be rather mad that Rico destroyed more than 50% of the world's oil but they've got this nice tropical paradise to retire to or something. Except that they don't as any of the following might now befall Panau: nuclear fallout, tidal waves, poisoned water, oil fires, economic depression, collapse of government and order.

About the only disaster that won't befall Panau

And then there's Rico's reasoning. Sure any of the four countries involved getting control of all that oil would shift the balance of power and could quite possibly result in war. But Rico isn't allowed to gain any good karma points from this. You see when generating chaos not everything you do is destroying military bases and propaganda, this also things like water towers and transformers for tiny little villages. So Rico isn't allowed to do anything redeeming. He's a horrible person with the facade of a good guy. I suppose in retrospect his final act is perfectly in character, causing destruction for a weakly justified goal.

So remember way back at the start when I said I'd cover several things. Yeah well...I'm not.

Generic Title

Okay my guilt for leaving this blog dormant has reached the point where I'm actually going to finish a post so let's do this. I've been wracking my brain to find the nice middle ground between things I can talk about at length and things that people might actually care to read about.

So instead of a post about anime no ones heard of or games no ones played I'm going to rant about particular scenes in moderately well known films, Iron Man 2 and Sunshine.

(If you've watched these films with me then you probably will have already heard these thoughts)

Iron Man 2

It's the final fight of the film, Iron Man and War Machine have taken out all the Hammer drones in an adequate fight sequence. Ivan descends from the sky in a tougher looking suit, ready to wreck their shit up as only the main villian can (or rather should). War Machine steps forward and launches his trump card superweapon the Ex-wife, basically a super bunker buster. It bounces off Ivan's armour and Iron Man asks derisively "Hammer Tech right?".

Seriously what the fuck?

The joke is supposed to be that Hammer and his company are incompetant and can't build decent weaponery. But the joke falls apart if you think about it at all.

Only minutes ago War Machine's armour had been under Ivan's control and Iron Man had been desperately trying not to get his face blasted off by WM's chainguns; which happens to be Hammer Tech.

And what if the Ex-wife had worked? Sure it would have blown Ivan away, as it would have IM and WM. Why would you fire a high grade explosive in close range? And how come none of the characters make any attempt to escape/avoid it?

While this all probably sounds trivial and nitpicky, my main point is that our supposed heroes show a worrying lack of perception or foresight, which given that they are wearing power armour, is kind of a big deal.

Sunsine

While the IM2 bit was me raging at plot holes, for Sunshine it's more about missed opportunities.

Let's look at the final couple scenes: Capa (the protagonist) blows the airlock, venting all the air in the spacecraft, presumably killing Pinbacker (the psycho killer). He releases the bomb, jumps through empty space from the ship to it and gets inside. There he finds Cassie (the only other survivng member of the team) and Pinbacker, who inefficiently tries to kill them. During this time the bomb is INSIDE THE SUN. Capa and Cassie escape Pinbacker, Capa sets off the bomb, and any of the budget remaining is spent on special effects.

While I do like this segment, it seems like they went overboard making Capa the hero (he does more in the last act than most of the characters in the entire movie), Pinbacker the villian (did we need him showing up one more time in the bomb, isn't being inside the Sun enough danger?) and Cassie the useless woman (her only contribution to run to the bomb thereby leading Pinbacker there). Here's how I would have preferred the sequence to go.

Capa blows the airlock, explictly killing Pinbacker. He releases the bomb and jumps from ship to bomb. He doesn't get inside, let's say because of safety restrictions eg no opening doors this close to Sun. He remains on the outside and watches as they went the Sun, thus referencing his recurring dream of being on the surface of the Sun which is mentioned earlier in the film. Meanwhile Cassie realising the situation activates the bomb, given that in an earlier scene Capa explains to her how it is done. The bomb goes off, this time without having as much time engulfed in nuclear fusion.

Bear in mind I do like these films, and as a result I hold them up to a higher standard. In my mind the better something is, the more jarring a bad bit is.

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.

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.

Tuesday Night, Not Feeling Tired

One thing I'm sick of doing is explaining the difference between a twist and a swerve/surprise/asspull. And hearing people mention that stupid Robot Chicken sketch whenever this topic comes up.

Here's a satisfying explanation about what a twist:

That’s the frustrating thing about the game’s twist: it’s the worst kind. In a good twist the audience is led, by artful storytelling, to an incorrect conclusion that makes perfect sense given the facts available. But then, after the twist has been revealed, and they know the truth, all of those facts take on a second, deeper meaning. On subsequent readings the story plays entirely different, as the characters dialogue, thoughts, and actions make sense in multiple ways at once. This wasn’t one of those twists.

If the level of quality didn't give it away, the previous part was by someone else. It is an extract from a rather snarky but good look at Heavy Rain's apparently numerous plot holes, which is a good read for anyone who enjoys popular things being torn apart and criticised. Since you are reading my blog, I would assume that means you. Go now.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

Fallen Hero

The first Metal Gear Solid had a quirky miniboss team called FOXHOUND. The team's popularity, in particular Psycho Mantis'*, lead to every later Metal Gear Solid having an enemy team comprised of bizarre individuals. By MGS3 Hideo Kojima must have been getting desperate because it was in this game that they made The Pain.

With the power to control bees he was destined to be the butt of the internet's jokes but I had always had hope for him. Done well, his vaguely explained abilities could prove interesting both stylistically and in game. Besides what about The Fury? He was an angry guy with a flamethrower.

As the past tense has suggested my hope for The Pain is gone. Until recently I'd only known things about him second-hand and so had assumed all the negatively had just been because he was overshadowed by the franchise's numerous badasses. Then I watched a Let's Play of MGS3.

When the player comes face to face with The Pain he immediately starts doing flips and talking about pain. Okay we get it, pain is the 'emotion' the carry into battle. That doesn't mean every second line of dialogue has to be about it.

Once the actual boss fight began any of my respect for The Pain that survived the previous cutscene died. Most of The Pain's attacks speed past clever and go straight into absurd; these are the types of things you don't need to make a joke about as they do it by themselves. In one attack he pulls out a tommy gun and fires bees out of it, in another he has his bees carry a grenade over to you, and best (worst?) of all, The Pain covers himself in his bees...as armour.
Wow.

The only real nice thing one can say about The Pain is that at least he has the decency to not explain his life story either before the fight or as he dies. But that was probably more because there wasn't much to him, as this inexplicably shrunken picture manages to summarise both The Pain's character and overall plot relevance.

He sure is.

*Psycho Mantis proves that regardless of how old a joke gets the internet will keep it alive, especially if it shouldn't.

Subtext!

A while ago I was watching the first Naruto movie on Cartoon Network (there was nothing better on...seriously) and I couldn't help but feel something was a little off. Shonen fighting anime traditionally has cliched morals, flat protagonists and over the top villians, but this was something new.

To effectively explain what it is, I'll need to summarise the plot first: Naruto, Sasuke and Kakashi are hired as bodyguards for Yukie as she goes to the Land of Snow to make a movie. Through the magic of contrived coincidences it turns out that Yukie is the deposed princess of the country, and her usurper uncle wants to capture/kill her to get the plot device crystal she carries. As well as dealing with opposing ninjas the titular character must also stop Yukie from running away and convince her to take back her country. In the end the villians are all dead, spring comes to the land and Yukie becomes the princess (queen?).

So the idea is that Yukie must face her fears, stop running away and take responsibility for her country. Or at least that's what it is in planning. In actuality it is a story of a normal woman caught between two groups of superhumans, each with their own agendas and little regard for Yukie; the villains want Yukie's land and its treasure, and the 'heroes' want Yukie to be in danger to validate their existance as bodyguards.
What makes this film so sad is that by the end, poor Yukie has changed from the independant woman capable of giving ninja's the slip to a cheerleader for the very people that were forcing her into danger.

Yukie Kazahana: self-centred ice queen, or tragic heroine?

The reason for this charcter derailment? None other than Naruto himself. I've come to realise that Naruto is brilliant but evil character who hides behind an image of rash but well-meaning incompetence.
He uses a combination of brutal one-sided (he's got as much chakra as the plot requires) beatdowns and repititon of the superiority of his life goal and philosophy (and therefore the inferiority of everyone else's). This physical and verbal combo has an accelerated Stockholm Syndrome effect, making the victim subservient to Naruto.

Thinking I'm bullshitting? Let's look at some of the peole he has converted:
-Yukie, who went from finding Naruto an annoying brat to calling him the greatest ninja ever;
-Neji, who changed his whole view of fate after losing to Naruto;
-Gaara, who went from being a psychotic killer to.....less of one.

The face of cunning, believe it.