This game has been out for about a week and so far my brother has knocked up 33.6 hours of play with it.
After having a go with it myself, I'm really not surprised.
So the most astonishing thing about Dawn of War 2 is how addictive it is. Most of this is down to the RPG elements - your squads level up frequently and you are always unlocking wargear, meaning you're constantly customising your squads and getting attached to them.
The battles feel really personal - of the squads available, there are three 3 man squads and a 4 man squad... with these you have to battle through hundreds of enemies...
It captures the feel of the table top game- small numbers of marines cutting through hundreds of orks.
Hee.
So yes, it's bloody good fun. The plot is also done pretty damn well. There's enough of it so you feel engaged but no more, really. This is slightly sad but I'm grateful for what we have, given that it's a semi-non linear RTS
Are there any problems?
Well, the Tyranids are a bit rubbish. When I played the tabletop game, about ten years ago now, I remember the tyranids being huge red creatures, the iconic one I remember was a bipedal red alien thing with four arms, each carrying a bone-sword.
Here, you've got hundreds of little critter things that are easily dispatched and a few generic tentacle things. They're not really bad, it just doesn't feel like they've been crafted in the same way the eldar/space marines have.
It would also be nice to have a few more choices of squad.
This is a double edged thing - at the moment, each squad has personality and feels genuinely unique. If you were to introduce more, that uniqueness would fade. The thing is though, at the moment I can chose from:
1) scout squad - who are sneaky and have loads of really useful abilities
2) jump pack squad - who are close combat experts
3) your commander
4) a devastator squad- who have a heavy bolter chaingun thing
5) a tactical squad - who are generic marines.
Now, of those, I always have the first three and switch out the last two depending on whom I'm fighting. They're pretty much interchangeable though. It would be nice to have slightly more variety so you're making genuine tactical choices about who you bring with you on a mission.
But yes, Dawn of War 2 is utterly superb. get it :D
Friday, 27 February 2009
Thursday, 26 February 2009
Game piracy
So because I've had quite a small disposable income for most of my life (and what I do have tends to go on upgrades for my PC) I used to pirate games a lot. I did used to buy dvds but my brother persuaded me over Christmas to start buying games in stead of dvd's as the movie industry gets plenty of money as it is whilst indie game developers need the money more. Which is fair enough.
So I've resolved not to pirate games unless I'm genuinely unsure as to whether I'll like them or not.
What does annoy me, though, is how easy it is to pirate the damn things rather than getting them legitimately. I ordered Dawn of War 2 from Play.com, it was dispatched on the 17th of this month and, nine days later, it still hasn't arrived. Reh.
So I pirated it. I bought the damn thing anyway, the disc just hasn't arrived yet.
The torrent downloaded in under eight hours, whilst I was asleep. I checked out the cracking instructions and, whilst it's slightly more complicated than the usual copy/replace the original exe file with a new one, it's won't take more than five minutes work to crack it.
This annoys me because, whilst it's play.com's fault that I haven't gotten this game legitimately but Steam should also take some of the blame for charging £12 more for the damn game than play.com are,
Pricing is supposed to be competitive, people, that's how capitalism keeps getting sold to us.
But yeah, this is just me moaning. In general, it's still easier to get games legitimately than illegally - thanks mainly to Steam, but there are odd cases like this that frustrate.
So I've resolved not to pirate games unless I'm genuinely unsure as to whether I'll like them or not.
What does annoy me, though, is how easy it is to pirate the damn things rather than getting them legitimately. I ordered Dawn of War 2 from Play.com, it was dispatched on the 17th of this month and, nine days later, it still hasn't arrived. Reh.
So I pirated it. I bought the damn thing anyway, the disc just hasn't arrived yet.
The torrent downloaded in under eight hours, whilst I was asleep. I checked out the cracking instructions and, whilst it's slightly more complicated than the usual copy/replace the original exe file with a new one, it's won't take more than five minutes work to crack it.
This annoys me because, whilst it's play.com's fault that I haven't gotten this game legitimately but Steam should also take some of the blame for charging £12 more for the damn game than play.com are,
Pricing is supposed to be competitive, people, that's how capitalism keeps getting sold to us.
But yeah, this is just me moaning. In general, it's still easier to get games legitimately than illegally - thanks mainly to Steam, but there are odd cases like this that frustrate.
Wednesday, 25 February 2009
Cryostatis
For those who don't know, Cryostatis is a Russian game set inside an Ice Breaker at the north pole in 1981... A trailer is here
A version has appeared on the tubes (thank Atheismo for Try Before You Buy) and I got in a few hours with it last night.
My observations follow:
1) The graphics are okay. They're kind of outdated by current generation standards but I'd like to think PC gamers are mature enough to live with dodgy graphics if the gameplay is decent.
2) It isn't.
3) A big problem with Cryostatis is- there isn't really a set up. You can get the setting and so on, and there's this weird opening sequence that tells an ancient story about some Inuit's who get driven out of their homeland but other than that you're shoved into the ice breaker with no real idea of who you are or what you're meant to be doing.
It's really hard to feel scared by the weird goings on around you because they feel so completely without context. You can work out that you're being attacked by the ghosts of drowned sailors if you pay attention but why on earth are you able to enter the memories of said sailors and poke around? Are you magical or something?
4) This poking around in the memories of dead sailors is another issue. You have to go back in time and prevent their death - either by getting them to a door before they drown or by defending them against enemies. This would be okay but they're frustratingly hard and don't seem to benefit you at all. Or the people. You're told (by on screen text, not by any character) that this is to save the sailors souls... You're given no indication that this has, in fact happened, though and you don't really get a benefit such as a piece of info from the sailor's spirit... all you get is an unblocked door/passage to let you proceed.
5) The heat thing is a bit odd.
You don't get a health bar in this game, you get a heat meter. Okay, you may be thinking, that makes some sense. It's in the north pole, it would be a bit stupid if you didn't have to worry about the cold.
The problem is, it's a little hard to swallow. Your body temperature goes down when you're running around the freezing cold ship and you can warm yourself up by huddling round a heat source, fine. The problems arise when you can get half of your heat/health back from a light bulb.
It makes sense if you're sapping heat from a massive engine or a fire but a light bulb?
Also, the enemies' attacks are a little odd. As they hit you, they get colder. Okay, I suppose. They have to affect your health some way. I just think it would make the game much more effective to really run with this whole cold thing.
At the moment, the enemies leap out of the water, or whatever, and run at you, swinging their fists or an axe or whatever. I can't help feeling it would be much more awesome if they struggled out of the water and crawled towards you - the cold following them. You can't get near them because they're cold incarnate. You have to run.
It would certainly help alleviate the really quite bad melee combat.
6) The voice acting is okay.
Much better than that in Stalker (although that's not saying much) but they've used the old Stalker device or not explaining a damn thing.
7) It's not that fun to play.
It's too linear, the combat is rubbish, the atmosphere gets old, you can't move quickly enough and most of the interesting ideas are implemented really poorly.
So yeah. Not as good as S.T.A.L.K.E.R: Shadow of Chernobyl. A for effort, C for execution.
Oh well, let's see what Dark Athena's like...
A version has appeared on the tubes (thank Atheismo for Try Before You Buy) and I got in a few hours with it last night.
My observations follow:
1) The graphics are okay. They're kind of outdated by current generation standards but I'd like to think PC gamers are mature enough to live with dodgy graphics if the gameplay is decent.
2) It isn't.
3) A big problem with Cryostatis is- there isn't really a set up. You can get the setting and so on, and there's this weird opening sequence that tells an ancient story about some Inuit's who get driven out of their homeland but other than that you're shoved into the ice breaker with no real idea of who you are or what you're meant to be doing.
It's really hard to feel scared by the weird goings on around you because they feel so completely without context. You can work out that you're being attacked by the ghosts of drowned sailors if you pay attention but why on earth are you able to enter the memories of said sailors and poke around? Are you magical or something?
4) This poking around in the memories of dead sailors is another issue. You have to go back in time and prevent their death - either by getting them to a door before they drown or by defending them against enemies. This would be okay but they're frustratingly hard and don't seem to benefit you at all. Or the people. You're told (by on screen text, not by any character) that this is to save the sailors souls... You're given no indication that this has, in fact happened, though and you don't really get a benefit such as a piece of info from the sailor's spirit... all you get is an unblocked door/passage to let you proceed.
5) The heat thing is a bit odd.
You don't get a health bar in this game, you get a heat meter. Okay, you may be thinking, that makes some sense. It's in the north pole, it would be a bit stupid if you didn't have to worry about the cold.
The problem is, it's a little hard to swallow. Your body temperature goes down when you're running around the freezing cold ship and you can warm yourself up by huddling round a heat source, fine. The problems arise when you can get half of your heat/health back from a light bulb.
It makes sense if you're sapping heat from a massive engine or a fire but a light bulb?
Also, the enemies' attacks are a little odd. As they hit you, they get colder. Okay, I suppose. They have to affect your health some way. I just think it would make the game much more effective to really run with this whole cold thing.
At the moment, the enemies leap out of the water, or whatever, and run at you, swinging their fists or an axe or whatever. I can't help feeling it would be much more awesome if they struggled out of the water and crawled towards you - the cold following them. You can't get near them because they're cold incarnate. You have to run.
It would certainly help alleviate the really quite bad melee combat.
6) The voice acting is okay.
Much better than that in Stalker (although that's not saying much) but they've used the old Stalker device or not explaining a damn thing.
7) It's not that fun to play.
It's too linear, the combat is rubbish, the atmosphere gets old, you can't move quickly enough and most of the interesting ideas are implemented really poorly.
So yeah. Not as good as S.T.A.L.K.E.R: Shadow of Chernobyl. A for effort, C for execution.
Oh well, let's see what Dark Athena's like...
Tuesday, 24 February 2009
Indie Games
So my copy of Dawn of War 2 hasn't arrived yet, despite being dispatched by play.com 7 days ago. It's getting to the point where I'm going to get fed up and buy it from Steam (even ignoring the fact that it costs £12 more) and I'll send back the play.com version when it does eventually arrive.
Meh.
Anyhoo, to stop myself from going crazy, I've bought a few indie games as well as a budget version of an Ubisoft one...
A Vampyr Story
Long story short, this is an adventure game concerning a vampire maiden trying to escape from the island of her vampire husband/captor person.
Adventure games have progressed a lot thanks to Telltale's Sam and Max games and it's extremely disheartening to see those lessons almost completely ignored. Some puzzles make sense but most of them rely on massive leaps of logic that I'm not entirely convinced any sane person would be able to get.
The two main characters are also rather annoying. The vampire you control seems to be channeling Jennifer Tilly from Bound (as far as her voice goes at least. Sadly, certain other aspects of that character aren't present) whilst her sidekick has *the* most annoying American accent I've heard. It's set in Transylvania, why the hell does he have a really, really blatant American accent?
This sort of thing is just about okay in games like Assassins Creed where the accent is more neutral than anything else but this bloody bat sounds like a Brooklyn cabbie.
So yeah, not very good annoyingly...
Crayon Physics Deluxe
Crayon Physics is a game where you are presented with a ball and a star. You have to move the ball to the star but there usually isn't any ground in between the two. Or there are obstacles. Or whatever. You can draw things onto the screen, though, and when you're finished they're given weight and substance. So you can make a hammer to swing and hit the ball or a dead weight to pull the ball or whatever.
The actual game itself isn't that great but what is really good fun is creating hugely over complicated scenarios and mechanisms. These get more fun the more pointless they are.
Making a dead weight which pulls a string which pivots a lever which drops a rock with lands on a see saw which catapults a box to a set of scales which tips a hammer which hits the ball the three inches it needed to go to reach the star is utterly pointless yet very, very good fun.
Settlers 6: Rise of an Empire
This isn't technically an indie game but no-one bought the bloody thing so I think it should count.
I've completed Settlers 6 before and loved it - the combat was rubbish but building a self sustaining city was fantastic. Creating the right amount of grain farmers without over stretching your tailors or cleaning supplies stores.... it's like balancing a complex equation but with awesome visuals and added elements like predators that kill your sheep and seasons that stop grain growing and freeze rivers so you can't get any fish.
This is also the only strategy game I've ever played where the skirmishes are more fun than the campaign. It's great to just get plonked onto a massive map and expand and expand and expand. You don't have to worry about fighting people, you just need to worry about building and creating. It's the game version of the hippie movement but with more vikings.
Meh.
Anyhoo, to stop myself from going crazy, I've bought a few indie games as well as a budget version of an Ubisoft one...
A Vampyr Story
Long story short, this is an adventure game concerning a vampire maiden trying to escape from the island of her vampire husband/captor person.
Adventure games have progressed a lot thanks to Telltale's Sam and Max games and it's extremely disheartening to see those lessons almost completely ignored. Some puzzles make sense but most of them rely on massive leaps of logic that I'm not entirely convinced any sane person would be able to get.
The two main characters are also rather annoying. The vampire you control seems to be channeling Jennifer Tilly from Bound (as far as her voice goes at least. Sadly, certain other aspects of that character aren't present) whilst her sidekick has *the* most annoying American accent I've heard. It's set in Transylvania, why the hell does he have a really, really blatant American accent?
This sort of thing is just about okay in games like Assassins Creed where the accent is more neutral than anything else but this bloody bat sounds like a Brooklyn cabbie.
So yeah, not very good annoyingly...
Crayon Physics Deluxe
Crayon Physics is a game where you are presented with a ball and a star. You have to move the ball to the star but there usually isn't any ground in between the two. Or there are obstacles. Or whatever. You can draw things onto the screen, though, and when you're finished they're given weight and substance. So you can make a hammer to swing and hit the ball or a dead weight to pull the ball or whatever.
The actual game itself isn't that great but what is really good fun is creating hugely over complicated scenarios and mechanisms. These get more fun the more pointless they are.
Making a dead weight which pulls a string which pivots a lever which drops a rock with lands on a see saw which catapults a box to a set of scales which tips a hammer which hits the ball the three inches it needed to go to reach the star is utterly pointless yet very, very good fun.
Settlers 6: Rise of an Empire
This isn't technically an indie game but no-one bought the bloody thing so I think it should count.
I've completed Settlers 6 before and loved it - the combat was rubbish but building a self sustaining city was fantastic. Creating the right amount of grain farmers without over stretching your tailors or cleaning supplies stores.... it's like balancing a complex equation but with awesome visuals and added elements like predators that kill your sheep and seasons that stop grain growing and freeze rivers so you can't get any fish.
This is also the only strategy game I've ever played where the skirmishes are more fun than the campaign. It's great to just get plonked onto a massive map and expand and expand and expand. You don't have to worry about fighting people, you just need to worry about building and creating. It's the game version of the hippie movement but with more vikings.
Those Dancing Days - Home Sweet Home
The more music I listen to, the most it becomes obvious that I don't actually have a taste...
I like more Opera Metal and a fair bit of Ska Punk but other than that... I like emo music if we're talking Alkaline Trio, not My Chemical Romance. I like some classic metal, if we're talking selected Deep Purple tracks, not as most people seem to define it, anything from the 80's. I even like Cradle of Filth if I'm in a charitable mood.
I think I like anything as long as it's good and (this is probably more important) interesting. This explains why I can have a music collection where my top three songs are:
Telegraph Road by Dire Straights
Believe - Yellowcard
Blood Sugar - Pendulum
I think this is the only sensible approach to music. I don't understand why people would discount whole genres because they don't like some examples. Every genre of music has some shining examples in it. I even found an Ice Cube song I liked the other day, which makes up for Deep Blue Sea somewhat...
Anyhoo, one of my friends recommended this song:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3AgTAS-MJJQ&feature=PlayList&p=3AEFBA0541580780&index=16
Home Sweet Home by Those Dancing Days
Now this song has several things going for it:
1) It's overwhelmingly happy. The cheerful nature of this song smothers you like a lover ending your life with a pillow made out of kittens playing with balls of string.
2) It's upbeat enough for you to dance to but somehow it's also nice to relax to. I'm buggered if I know how they've managed this but it's pretty impressive.
3) The singer is excellent. More bands should employ female singers for the simple reason that their voices sound nicer than mens... they just do. I can only think of one band off the top of my head with a bad female singer (Defenestration) whereas bad male singers? More than I can count. If you actually want some examples, pick three CD's at random from the Metal section of your local HMV.
4) It's whimsical without being pretentious. "Home sweet home, I've been away for too long". That's just... nice. We've all felt like that at times. I hate to use phrases like "universal theme" but... you get the idea.
So yeah. Good song. I'll check out their other stuff now.
I like more Opera Metal and a fair bit of Ska Punk but other than that... I like emo music if we're talking Alkaline Trio, not My Chemical Romance. I like some classic metal, if we're talking selected Deep Purple tracks, not as most people seem to define it, anything from the 80's. I even like Cradle of Filth if I'm in a charitable mood.
I think I like anything as long as it's good and (this is probably more important) interesting. This explains why I can have a music collection where my top three songs are:
Telegraph Road by Dire Straights
Believe - Yellowcard
Blood Sugar - Pendulum
I think this is the only sensible approach to music. I don't understand why people would discount whole genres because they don't like some examples. Every genre of music has some shining examples in it. I even found an Ice Cube song I liked the other day, which makes up for Deep Blue Sea somewhat...
Anyhoo, one of my friends recommended this song:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3AgTAS-MJJQ&feature=PlayList&p=3AEFBA0541580780&index=16
Home Sweet Home by Those Dancing Days
Now this song has several things going for it:
1) It's overwhelmingly happy. The cheerful nature of this song smothers you like a lover ending your life with a pillow made out of kittens playing with balls of string.
2) It's upbeat enough for you to dance to but somehow it's also nice to relax to. I'm buggered if I know how they've managed this but it's pretty impressive.
3) The singer is excellent. More bands should employ female singers for the simple reason that their voices sound nicer than mens... they just do. I can only think of one band off the top of my head with a bad female singer (Defenestration) whereas bad male singers? More than I can count. If you actually want some examples, pick three CD's at random from the Metal section of your local HMV.
4) It's whimsical without being pretentious. "Home sweet home, I've been away for too long". That's just... nice. We've all felt like that at times. I hate to use phrases like "universal theme" but... you get the idea.
So yeah. Good song. I'll check out their other stuff now.
Friday, 20 February 2009
Things americans shouldn't be allowed to make tv/films about
Our American bretheren have some very, very skilled writers amongst them. The writers of Battlestar Galactica are so fantastic I don't need to provide any further examples.
There are certain topics, however, that no American can possibly write about without spewing out insufferable trash.
1) Communism
Now, it's pretty well established in Britain at least that Communism is not, in itself, incredibly evil. Stalin was a cunt, yes, but communism industrialised Russia and deposed a brutal leadership. It is certian, though, that the Cold War was just an exercise in posturing between two countries with huge egos. The Americans still believe that they were fighting a rightous war against an evil oppressor
(worst offendor: Indiana Jones 4)
2) Christmas
Okay, America is a really christian country, I get it, but every bloody show has a christmas episode these days. Chuck had one which was fairly pointless, this I don't mind. What I mind is when 30 Rock, one of the more witty and self aware shows on television drops all its sobriety and cynicism anjavascript:void(0)d makes a cheese heavy 22 minute plattitude fest where every character, no matter how cynical, must learn THE TRUE MEANING OF CHRISTMAS.
(worst offendor: scrubs - series 1)
3) Babies
See my abortion post earlier for a more expansive view on this but put simply: It's okay for soap operas like Everwood to be overtly sentimental about babies but in EVERY bloody American show the main characters are always obsessed with squirting out pointless additions to the human race. Many people think that having kids is the most important thing you can do in your life. Many, many people disagree. Stop it.
(worst offendor: 30 Rock)
To be continued.
Oh, and just to prove that I'm not being racist, here are the things British People shouldn't be allowed to write about:
1) Gangsters
2) Gangsters
3) Gangsters
4) The French
There are certain topics, however, that no American can possibly write about without spewing out insufferable trash.
1) Communism
Now, it's pretty well established in Britain at least that Communism is not, in itself, incredibly evil. Stalin was a cunt, yes, but communism industrialised Russia and deposed a brutal leadership. It is certian, though, that the Cold War was just an exercise in posturing between two countries with huge egos. The Americans still believe that they were fighting a rightous war against an evil oppressor
(worst offendor: Indiana Jones 4)
2) Christmas
Okay, America is a really christian country, I get it, but every bloody show has a christmas episode these days. Chuck had one which was fairly pointless, this I don't mind. What I mind is when 30 Rock, one of the more witty and self aware shows on television drops all its sobriety and cynicism anjavascript:void(0)d makes a cheese heavy 22 minute plattitude fest where every character, no matter how cynical, must learn THE TRUE MEANING OF CHRISTMAS.
(worst offendor: scrubs - series 1)
3) Babies
See my abortion post earlier for a more expansive view on this but put simply: It's okay for soap operas like Everwood to be overtly sentimental about babies but in EVERY bloody American show the main characters are always obsessed with squirting out pointless additions to the human race. Many people think that having kids is the most important thing you can do in your life. Many, many people disagree. Stop it.
(worst offendor: 30 Rock)
To be continued.
Oh, and just to prove that I'm not being racist, here are the things British People shouldn't be allowed to write about:
1) Gangsters
2) Gangsters
3) Gangsters
4) The French
Push (part 2)
Briefly:
Just checked the metascore for Push:
http://www.metacritic.com/film/titles/push?q=push
it was 31.
As a point of Comparison, the new film Pink Panther 2 starring Steve Martin scored 36...
Kind of proof that film critics need to get the fuck over themselves if ever proof was needed...
Just checked the metascore for Push:
http://www.metacritic.com/film/titles/push?q=push
it was 31.
As a point of Comparison, the new film Pink Panther 2 starring Steve Martin scored 36...
Kind of proof that film critics need to get the fuck over themselves if ever proof was needed...
Push
Push is a perfect example of how a fantastic director can save a pretty dodgy script.
So Push is about a group of mutants who are being chased by the government for various reasons - the plot is pretty immaterial to be honest - it's pretty good and the characters are well rounded but if you're looking for a really well told mutant story, you're in the wrong place. If you're looking for good characters and an action film that doesn't take itself too seriously, Push is for you.
The most impressive thing about push is how convincing the mutants are. There's none of this x-men shit where one can control the weather, one can heal etc. etc. There are set powers (telekenetics, people who can see the future etc.) but they all do it in slightly different ways. For example, the "good" person who can see the future (very well played by Dakota Fanning) sees images of what the future will hold whilst the "bad" one sees intentions rather than what actually happens.
But yes, the special effects are very good (there are only a couple of bits of dodgy CGI) and it's very well directed - as you'd expect from the guy who gave us Lucky Number Slevin.
As is traditional with this sort of film, everything kind of falls apart at the end. When the final plot twist has run its course, there are more than a few loose ends that the film chickens out on tying up.
I'm all for leaving a few loose ends, by the way, but in this case it doesn't work.
Push isn't on the same level as Iron Man, for instance, but it's definitely worth seeing if you can ignore some pretty major story problems.
So Push is about a group of mutants who are being chased by the government for various reasons - the plot is pretty immaterial to be honest - it's pretty good and the characters are well rounded but if you're looking for a really well told mutant story, you're in the wrong place. If you're looking for good characters and an action film that doesn't take itself too seriously, Push is for you.
The most impressive thing about push is how convincing the mutants are. There's none of this x-men shit where one can control the weather, one can heal etc. etc. There are set powers (telekenetics, people who can see the future etc.) but they all do it in slightly different ways. For example, the "good" person who can see the future (very well played by Dakota Fanning) sees images of what the future will hold whilst the "bad" one sees intentions rather than what actually happens.
But yes, the special effects are very good (there are only a couple of bits of dodgy CGI) and it's very well directed - as you'd expect from the guy who gave us Lucky Number Slevin.
As is traditional with this sort of film, everything kind of falls apart at the end. When the final plot twist has run its course, there are more than a few loose ends that the film chickens out on tying up.
I'm all for leaving a few loose ends, by the way, but in this case it doesn't work.
Push isn't on the same level as Iron Man, for instance, but it's definitely worth seeing if you can ignore some pretty major story problems.
Tuesday, 17 February 2009
Left 4 Dead Wishlist
I've been playing Left 4 Dead for the last couple of months and... I love it.
Co-op play is the fashion at the moment but the main problem with all co-op games I've played is... you've never really felt dependant on your team mates. Even in the Splinter Cell co-op modes, it's common for you and your team mate to try and do seperate objectives at the same time, taking different routes through buildings and so on.
In Left 4 Dead, if you are seperated from your team, that's it. You're dead. On anything higher than Normal Difficulty at least. I love this - it really gels the team together to have had every member of the team saved the other members lives multiple times.
But the game isn't perfect, these are the things I would like to see from upcoming patches:
1) More levels, more weapons, more special zombies
This is a bit of a no-brainer. The game is fantastic, I'd like to see more of it :)
2) More places for the zombies to spawn from.
This one is harder - at the moment you get ambushed by zombies constantly. This is fantastic- but often I've found myself looking up at the skyscrapers and thinking how awesome it would be if suddenly all the windows shattered and zombies came piling out...
This would involve coding individual rooms for every building in Left 4 Dead and probably won't be done by Valve themselves. I'd like to hope a modder might take the task on but their time could probably be more constructively used in creating new levels.
3) Add another difficulty level
So, for me, Advanced is now a little too easy... I usually play with my brother and two bots (or a team of strangers if my brother isnt around) and we tear through the levels with little trouble.
The problem is, on Expert you need a perfect team. There is no room for mistakes. I have only ever survived an Expert campaign once and it took me two hours. By the end I was so jittery and paronoid I couldn't get to sleep.
It would be nice to have something in between these two difficulties. The great thing about expert is- the AI director never lets you rest. You're constantly being hit by swarms and special infected. The problem is you also lose 20 health for every zombie hit. It would be nice to have an extra difficulty mode with the former alteration but not the latter
4) Allow us to look down the iron sights.
please, please, pretty please?
That's pretty much it. For what it is, the game is perfect. It would just be nice to see more, more more more more mooooooore.
Poor Valve. They give us a fantastic game and we instantly clamour for more. It's not easy being the best...
Co-op play is the fashion at the moment but the main problem with all co-op games I've played is... you've never really felt dependant on your team mates. Even in the Splinter Cell co-op modes, it's common for you and your team mate to try and do seperate objectives at the same time, taking different routes through buildings and so on.
In Left 4 Dead, if you are seperated from your team, that's it. You're dead. On anything higher than Normal Difficulty at least. I love this - it really gels the team together to have had every member of the team saved the other members lives multiple times.
But the game isn't perfect, these are the things I would like to see from upcoming patches:
1) More levels, more weapons, more special zombies
This is a bit of a no-brainer. The game is fantastic, I'd like to see more of it :)
2) More places for the zombies to spawn from.
This one is harder - at the moment you get ambushed by zombies constantly. This is fantastic- but often I've found myself looking up at the skyscrapers and thinking how awesome it would be if suddenly all the windows shattered and zombies came piling out...
This would involve coding individual rooms for every building in Left 4 Dead and probably won't be done by Valve themselves. I'd like to hope a modder might take the task on but their time could probably be more constructively used in creating new levels.
3) Add another difficulty level
So, for me, Advanced is now a little too easy... I usually play with my brother and two bots (or a team of strangers if my brother isnt around) and we tear through the levels with little trouble.
The problem is, on Expert you need a perfect team. There is no room for mistakes. I have only ever survived an Expert campaign once and it took me two hours. By the end I was so jittery and paronoid I couldn't get to sleep.
It would be nice to have something in between these two difficulties. The great thing about expert is- the AI director never lets you rest. You're constantly being hit by swarms and special infected. The problem is you also lose 20 health for every zombie hit. It would be nice to have an extra difficulty mode with the former alteration but not the latter
4) Allow us to look down the iron sights.
please, please, pretty please?
That's pretty much it. For what it is, the game is perfect. It would just be nice to see more, more more more more mooooooore.
Poor Valve. They give us a fantastic game and we instantly clamour for more. It's not easy being the best...
Monday, 16 February 2009
Poirot vs Miss Marple
I love detective stories. I always have. When I was young, my brother used to race windsurfers and whilst my family were there supporting him, I'd always be in the car with an Agatha Christie novel.
Yes, fuck you Sir Arthur Conan Dolye fans. Agatha Christie is the best mystery writer and I'll tell you why. In every single Sherlock Holmes book, he explains why the antagonist killed someone or stole something or slept in baby bears bed or whatever. The antagonist then breaks down and confesses despite the fact that there's NO CUNTING EVIDENCE AGAINST THEM and that if they'd just not said anything they'd still be free to this day.
CSI use a very similar trick, incidentally.
That's not my biggest problem with Holmes, either. My biggest problem is he always takes a few pieces of information and constructs a huge picture out of them. It's bullshit. One piece of information can mean so many things you can't possibly do that.
Anyway, the whole Poirot vs Miss Marple thing is a debate precisely no-one has had and for good reason, because the very best murder mystery thing every written is And Then There Were None, which has precisely neither of them in it.
Never mind.
So who would win in a fight between Poirot and Marple?
Well Poirot is younger... he could probably punch harder than Marple... The thing is, though- Poirot is a peacock... he is honourable and chivalrous. The great thing about Miss Marple - especially when played by Geraldine McEwan is that she's really quite sinister. I get the feeling that if she ever couldn't prove a crime, she'd wait until the murderer was asleep and insert a knitting needle into their carotid artery.
So, to answer that question, Marple would probably win because she'd piss Poirot off, Poirot would punch her, she'd fall over and break her leg. Six months later when she could walk again, she'd slip into Poirot's room when he was asleep and kill him.
The reason why I'm on Marple's side, by the way (you could so have argued that "who would beat who" thing the other way) is: She admits when she doesn't have enough evidence. She sets out to trap people into admitting their crimes.
No other detective I know of does that.
My reasons are a bit spurious here: I like Marple because she's as lame as every other detective but at least she admits she's being lame...
It's true, though. Other detectives claim to be geniuses and make up these really conveluted plots (what's that mental illness when you see connections between seperate events?) and are magically right. Marple has some reality to her.
That's what I think anyway.
Yes, fuck you Sir Arthur Conan Dolye fans. Agatha Christie is the best mystery writer and I'll tell you why. In every single Sherlock Holmes book, he explains why the antagonist killed someone or stole something or slept in baby bears bed or whatever. The antagonist then breaks down and confesses despite the fact that there's NO CUNTING EVIDENCE AGAINST THEM and that if they'd just not said anything they'd still be free to this day.
CSI use a very similar trick, incidentally.
That's not my biggest problem with Holmes, either. My biggest problem is he always takes a few pieces of information and constructs a huge picture out of them. It's bullshit. One piece of information can mean so many things you can't possibly do that.
Anyway, the whole Poirot vs Miss Marple thing is a debate precisely no-one has had and for good reason, because the very best murder mystery thing every written is And Then There Were None, which has precisely neither of them in it.
Never mind.
So who would win in a fight between Poirot and Marple?
Well Poirot is younger... he could probably punch harder than Marple... The thing is, though- Poirot is a peacock... he is honourable and chivalrous. The great thing about Miss Marple - especially when played by Geraldine McEwan is that she's really quite sinister. I get the feeling that if she ever couldn't prove a crime, she'd wait until the murderer was asleep and insert a knitting needle into their carotid artery.
So, to answer that question, Marple would probably win because she'd piss Poirot off, Poirot would punch her, she'd fall over and break her leg. Six months later when she could walk again, she'd slip into Poirot's room when he was asleep and kill him.
The reason why I'm on Marple's side, by the way (you could so have argued that "who would beat who" thing the other way) is: She admits when she doesn't have enough evidence. She sets out to trap people into admitting their crimes.
No other detective I know of does that.
My reasons are a bit spurious here: I like Marple because she's as lame as every other detective but at least she admits she's being lame...
It's true, though. Other detectives claim to be geniuses and make up these really conveluted plots (what's that mental illness when you see connections between seperate events?) and are magically right. Marple has some reality to her.
That's what I think anyway.
Futurama: Into The Wild Green Yonder
Into the Wild Green Yonder is the 4th and (hopefully) final entry in the series of Futurama films. So far my reactions to them have been:
1) Bender’s Big Score: Rubbish.
2) The Beast with a Billion Backs: Shit
3) Bender’s Game: Meh
So you can imagine I wasn’t exactly in awe when I saw a copy of Yonder had escaped onto the tubes…
Anyway, I’ll keep this one short. As this is the 4th film you’ll either want to watch it or not. I’ll bullet point my observations…
• Yonder is funny. Not particularly funny but it’s better than the Simpsons film. Unspurisngly.
• The guest star this time round is Penn Jilette. Oh well.
• Two of the requisite four stories are terrible, two are okay.
• It does that usual Bad American Television trick of having a semi political story and then copping out at the end with a resolution that re-establishes the status quo.
• It ends on what they probably thought was a really uplifting note. My reaction was: Is that it?
As I write this, one thing is obvious to me. Yonder wasn’t bad but there was so little to it, I’ve got very little to say about it. Other than a few stand out (for good or bad) moments, I can barely remember what happens in the damn thing. Which is odd for an hour and a half of television which I watched three days ago…
So, to sum up, it’s not worth watching unless you really, really, really need to know what the creators think should happen next to the Futurama crew but they can’t end this in any way that’s more moving or poignant than the ending of The Devils Hands Are Idle Playthings so the whole exercise was really rather pointless.
1) Bender’s Big Score: Rubbish.
2) The Beast with a Billion Backs: Shit
3) Bender’s Game: Meh
So you can imagine I wasn’t exactly in awe when I saw a copy of Yonder had escaped onto the tubes…
Anyway, I’ll keep this one short. As this is the 4th film you’ll either want to watch it or not. I’ll bullet point my observations…
• Yonder is funny. Not particularly funny but it’s better than the Simpsons film. Unspurisngly.
• The guest star this time round is Penn Jilette. Oh well.
• Two of the requisite four stories are terrible, two are okay.
• It does that usual Bad American Television trick of having a semi political story and then copping out at the end with a resolution that re-establishes the status quo.
• It ends on what they probably thought was a really uplifting note. My reaction was: Is that it?
As I write this, one thing is obvious to me. Yonder wasn’t bad but there was so little to it, I’ve got very little to say about it. Other than a few stand out (for good or bad) moments, I can barely remember what happens in the damn thing. Which is odd for an hour and a half of television which I watched three days ago…
So, to sum up, it’s not worth watching unless you really, really, really need to know what the creators think should happen next to the Futurama crew but they can’t end this in any way that’s more moving or poignant than the ending of The Devils Hands Are Idle Playthings so the whole exercise was really rather pointless.
Full Fear 2 review
Daniel Floyd recently wrote a heartfelt plea for non-writers to stop writing stories for their games. Hire professional writers, he said, as they know what works and what doesn’t. With that in mind, I hope he never plays Project Origin as he’s liable to break down and cry.
So Project Origin is the first direct sequel to 2005’s F.E.A.R, it’s also the first follow up to be developed by renowned developer Monolith. Two expansion packs were created by Timegate but they’re best ignored to be honest. Each of these projects has featured several common features: Scary little girls, armies of clones for you to shoot and uncountable stretches of corridor.
So what’s changed in Project Origin? Well, the character you play has a name this time which is surprisingly helpful. Characters no longer skirt unconvincingly around your identity as they did in FEAR by calling you “buddy”.
There’s also been a shift away from the grey corridors – there are more colours on display this time around, the environments have genuine personality. There are also odd sections of daylight which adds even more variety.
I’ve stalled for long enough, though. It’s time for the unpleasant truth. Project Origin, on PC at least, is really not very good.
I’ll start with what it does well: The graphics are very good. The environments and models are well rendered and there are an impressive number of animations for the enemy soldiers. It’s also surprisingly well optimised; I experienced no slowdown even when things were getting frenetic during the fire fights.
The horror elements are also done spectacularly well this time around. There are occasional scares during your time running around gunning people down but these are often rather forced. Where the game shines is in the hallucinations projected into your brain by Alma, the evil little girl hounding you everywhere you go.
In one recurring vision, you are in a field of corn. At the top of a hill in the distance, a little girl in a red dress plays on a swing. Your vision pulsates, the sun beats down on you harder and harder, the music swells- Monolith have taken an approach similar to that of J-Horror which is to not use cheap scares when you just as easily instil a feeling of awe and dread in your audience.
I really can’t praise the horror elements enough… There’s a focus on taking an idyllic setting and twisting it into something horrible. The sound design and music has clearly been designed to compliment this – there are plenty of screeching strings and unsettling chords.
Unfortunately, the horror elements take place in between the frequent fire fights and it’s there where things start to go wrong.
One of the biggest issues with the game is the story, which I mentioned earlier. Most of the story is told by finding data discs, which contain lines of text detailing the back story and the current actions of the various characters. This is worse than the audio recorders in Bioshock, at least they played audio to you. Here you have to stop whatever it is you’re doing, breaking the immersion in the process, and read lines of text to understand what’s going on. Is this really the best way Monolith could think of to explain the story?
The rest of the story is told in a more conventional manner by the characters. Calling it a story may be a little generous, though. You are trying to find Alma and stop her. Why it’s your responsibility is never really explained. Apparently you are the only Delta Force team within a hundred miles.
Even if you could forgive these faults, the biggest issue with the story is that it’s really badly written. I’m not talking plot holes, here; I’m talking about truly atrocious dialogue. One of the characters describes Alma’s tenaciousness and says she’ll chase you as if you’re “free pizza at an anime convention”. Can I take a minute to remind you this is supposed to be a horror game, not Dude, Where’s My Car?
Project Origin also employs my all time least favourite game device which is having your character never speak. This is supposedly so the player can project their personality onto the blank slate but in reality it kills any sense of immersion whenever a character talks to you and you just stare back at them.
The gameplay itself is another matter. I should point out at this point that I do respect Monolith- they have responded to criticisms of the original FEAR and genuinely tried to improve the game. Unfortunately, more of then than not, they have chosen to improve the wrong aspects of the gameplay.
For example, one criticism of the original FEAR that it consisted of nothing but completely interchangeable grey corridors. Monolith have responded to this, not by removing the corridors, but by painting all the corridors different colours. This means that the gameplay is as disappointingly linear as it was in the original but has the added bonus of the fantastic atmosphere being killed by all the lurid colours knocking around the place. I came across a fork lift truck painted half blue, half red.
A slightly bizarre sci fi theme has also been introduced. Your character wears futuristic goggles that feed video back to his superiors, which is fair enough. Unfortunately, this means that you play with a glowing blue line framing everything that happens in the game world. This becomes somewhat distracting. The enemies sport similar goggles which means their visors glow brightly, enabling you to spot them from across a football field, this doesn’t exactly promote a tense atmosphere.
The guns also feel futuristic, and not in a good way. The two machine guns present look and feel quite good but the shotguns lack punch and the laser weapons that get introduced later in the game are ineffective and silly.
There are a host of other problems as well- the AI has been stripped down so it’s far too easy, even on the hardest difficulty setting. This renders the ability to slow down time oddly pointless. The game is still far too linear, in spite of occasional open areas and the multiplayer is completely forgettable.
What really saddens me about Project Origin is… There is the seed of a good game here. The horror elements are fantastic as I mentioned earlier but some of the enemies hint at something much more interesting and much more fun. Late in the game you encounter semi-invisible assassins. I won’t spoil what they look like or what they do as the encounters with them are some of the only fun bits in the game but suffice it to say the tension and paranoia from the original FEAR returns in a rush as soon as they appear. If only Monolith had spent more time developing enemies like this in stead of creating hours of bland and disappointing gunplay.
There are also sections where you stride around the city in an armoured mechanical walker. These are fairly boring as you tear through anything with a pulse in seconds. I was getting ready to slate these sections as I thought it would have been much more fun to just let you take out the waves of enemies that attack you during these sections on foot. In the second of the vehicle sections, though, my walker got shot up so badly it shut down. I was expecting a game over screen but no- my character simply got out of the walker and I was able to continue on foot.
Suddenly I was having fun- waves of enemies attacked me, I was under fire from dozens of troops firing rockets at me. I had to dodge from cover to cover to cover, firing blindly at anything that moved. Unfortunately, you’re forced back into lienar encounters with small numbers of enemies shortly afterwards but at least I was able to pass on some advice: If you do buy this game, play the mech sections through without the mech. It’s much more fun.
It genuinely saddens me that Project Origin has all these faults. Partly because I loved the original FEAR but mostly because there really is a good game hidden in there somewhere. If Monolith had spent more time scaring the crap out of us and less time making the shooting sections generic, tensionless and far, far too easy Project Origin could have been a classic. As it is, it’s crippled. Horror fans will be disappointed because of the lame FPS elements and FPS fans will be disappointed because it’s no-where near as good as the original FEAR, let alone more recent efforts like Far Cry 2 and Crysis Warhead.
Thursday, 12 February 2009
Fear 2 impressions part 2
I played another couple of hours of Fear 2 last night and the news really isn't' that good.
It should be pointed out that the PC Zone review (IE one of the two publications I trust) says that the levels do get better after the one I'm currently on but we shall see.
Anyway, these are my observations:
1) It turns out, contrary to what I said earlier, you can look down the iron sights. The control to do this was squirreled away in a menu somewhere. Oddly, since finding it, I never really use it because the guns are so accurate and the enemies tend not to dodge much.
2) The slow motion this time round is utterly pointless. There are several reasons for this, mainly linked to lack of difficulty surrounding the game but the big one is:
3) enemies don't move in squads this time. You encounter them in ones and twos. This comes damn close to killing the game. The big reason the AI in FEAR worked is you'd get flanked whilst concentrating on one or two enemies. They'd work together. This is completely absent this time round.
4) whilst we're on the subject of enemies, I've encountered three types so far:
Human soldiers: Who have bright blue glowing goggles
Clone soldiers: Who have bright yellow glowing goggles
Failed experiments: The fast moving melee attackers every game tries to make awesome.
now. I can't over state how much having soldiers with glowing goggles kills the atmosphere. They look like they should be in a 70's camp Sci fi film ... This impression isn't helped by the glowing blue line that surrounds your HUD.
5) There's a character called Snake Fist - who wins the award for all time worst character name.
6) There's a line of dialogue that wins the award for Most Ridiculous Simile in any mainstream publication:
When describing Alma, the ghostly antagonist, a character says she'll come after you "like free pizza at an anime convention" followed by the phrase "she can smell you and wants to consume you"
This is why Daniel Floyd is always pleading for non writers to STOP trying to write for games.
7) The colour scheme is completely fucked.
So the offices in FEAR were very, very samey. The reason for this was they actually looked like offices. Here, there are colours everywhere. Railings are green, blue floor tiles - I came across a forklift truck where the bottom half was blue and the top half was red.
Now, one the one hand it's nice to see a game where the colour palette isn't made up entirely of shades of grey and brown but on the other- WHAT FUCKING WORLD DO THESE PEOPLE LIVE IN? Have you ever in your life ever seen a red and blue forklift truck? That's the sort of thing I'd expect to see in a street racing game, not a horror shooter.
Monolith have responded to criticisms of FEAR, not by removing the corridors (which they should have done) but by trying to make all the corridors different by painting them all lurid colours.
I really, really hope this game gets better because at the moment my finger is hovering over the delete key.
It should be pointed out that the PC Zone review (IE one of the two publications I trust) says that the levels do get better after the one I'm currently on but we shall see.
Anyway, these are my observations:
1) It turns out, contrary to what I said earlier, you can look down the iron sights. The control to do this was squirreled away in a menu somewhere. Oddly, since finding it, I never really use it because the guns are so accurate and the enemies tend not to dodge much.
2) The slow motion this time round is utterly pointless. There are several reasons for this, mainly linked to lack of difficulty surrounding the game but the big one is:
3) enemies don't move in squads this time. You encounter them in ones and twos. This comes damn close to killing the game. The big reason the AI in FEAR worked is you'd get flanked whilst concentrating on one or two enemies. They'd work together. This is completely absent this time round.
4) whilst we're on the subject of enemies, I've encountered three types so far:
Human soldiers: Who have bright blue glowing goggles
Clone soldiers: Who have bright yellow glowing goggles
Failed experiments: The fast moving melee attackers every game tries to make awesome.
now. I can't over state how much having soldiers with glowing goggles kills the atmosphere. They look like they should be in a 70's camp Sci fi film ... This impression isn't helped by the glowing blue line that surrounds your HUD.
5) There's a character called Snake Fist - who wins the award for all time worst character name.
6) There's a line of dialogue that wins the award for Most Ridiculous Simile in any mainstream publication:
When describing Alma, the ghostly antagonist, a character says she'll come after you "like free pizza at an anime convention" followed by the phrase "she can smell you and wants to consume you"
This is why Daniel Floyd is always pleading for non writers to STOP trying to write for games.
7) The colour scheme is completely fucked.
So the offices in FEAR were very, very samey. The reason for this was they actually looked like offices. Here, there are colours everywhere. Railings are green, blue floor tiles - I came across a forklift truck where the bottom half was blue and the top half was red.
Now, one the one hand it's nice to see a game where the colour palette isn't made up entirely of shades of grey and brown but on the other- WHAT FUCKING WORLD DO THESE PEOPLE LIVE IN? Have you ever in your life ever seen a red and blue forklift truck? That's the sort of thing I'd expect to see in a street racing game, not a horror shooter.
Monolith have responded to criticisms of FEAR, not by removing the corridors (which they should have done) but by trying to make all the corridors different by painting them all lurid colours.
I really, really hope this game gets better because at the moment my finger is hovering over the delete key.
South Park can fuck off
So I watched an episode of South Park called Go, God, Go. In it, Richard Dawkins teaches evolution to the children and is then convinced that religion is evil and should be wiped out. Fair enough, that's basically his attitude in real life.
Cartman is then transported into the future where religion no longer exists but scientists still appear to be raging war on each other - all shouting "SCIENCE damn you!" and so on. Basically, it's saying that science is religion with a lab coat.
Now, this is a really twatty episode. It's not funny, unless you count Mr Garrison shitting into his hand and throwing it at Richard Dawkins funny, which you may do if you're 12. What it is, is massively pretentious.
Now, I get that the episode is supposed to be about extremism being wrong (particularly Dawkins attitude to religion)- what I have a problem with is the episode says that if atheists are extreme enough to try and rid the world of religion, they will abandon everything they believe in.
If I could turn this around slightly, this is like having an episode where religious people want to wipe out atheists and 500 years later, they've abandoned everything they've believed in and have become atheists. It just doesn't make any sense.
I really don't like the idea that people agree with the sentiment that if scientists disagree vehemently enough with religion, they'll abandon questioning their motives, conclusions and methods. That they'll abandon everything that makes them scientists. This argument would be okay if they were rival factions in, for example, animal farm where one side would become obsessed with truth and freedom, liberate itself and then begin terrorising itself. I can cope with that because an entire society goes through this change.
This isn't the case with the south park episode because you can't have an entire society made up of scientists. The idea that scientists would worship something to the point of abandoning everything that has made them what they are is just fucking stupid.
The possibility exists that none of the people depicted in the future are in fact scientists, and that they just worship something called science and are new religious nuts. In that case, what is the episode criticising? Religion. Just religion.
I should point out at this point that if you wanted to criticise extremism amongst scientists, there's loads of ways to do it. Just one is to go into the somewhat dubious methods some use to get results in under funded areas- the company I work for sells a documentary about an eastern European scientist who drilled into his patients skulls and attached electrodes to their brains in order to try and cure blindness. It didn't work. His, I suppose you could call them victims, still can't see and now have plugs in the sides of their skull that don't fit properly and leak brain fluid.
THAT's extreme science, and it would be a much more valid thing to criticise than the massive false syllogism that science + hatred of religion = religion.
The problem with the current incarnation of South Park is... it used to be mildly topical farce. Episodes like the Ladder To Heaven touched on topical issues but spent most of their time trying to be funny. Now, they appear to have abandoned the humour in favour of high level satire.
The problem is- satire is hard. Really, really hard. The list of shows that have pulled it off is very short. Yes Minister managed it, Jennifer Government managed it. South Park doesn't manage it.
I've got a final point on this subject. Trey Parker and Matt Stone are obsessed with going after targets no-one else goes after. In Team America World Police, they refused to criticise George Bush because everyone was doing that. Now, that's fair enough but that attitude can really get you into trouble. It can lead you to criticise things that you really don't have the skill to criticise.
Matt & Trey need to realise that they're not massively intelligent political commentators, they're overgrown schoolboys with a large animation budget. That's fine and has allowed them to produce some really good television. They're tried satire, it really hasn't worked. Can we have the old show back please?
Cartman is then transported into the future where religion no longer exists but scientists still appear to be raging war on each other - all shouting "SCIENCE damn you!" and so on. Basically, it's saying that science is religion with a lab coat.
Now, this is a really twatty episode. It's not funny, unless you count Mr Garrison shitting into his hand and throwing it at Richard Dawkins funny, which you may do if you're 12. What it is, is massively pretentious.
Now, I get that the episode is supposed to be about extremism being wrong (particularly Dawkins attitude to religion)- what I have a problem with is the episode says that if atheists are extreme enough to try and rid the world of religion, they will abandon everything they believe in.
If I could turn this around slightly, this is like having an episode where religious people want to wipe out atheists and 500 years later, they've abandoned everything they've believed in and have become atheists. It just doesn't make any sense.
I really don't like the idea that people agree with the sentiment that if scientists disagree vehemently enough with religion, they'll abandon questioning their motives, conclusions and methods. That they'll abandon everything that makes them scientists. This argument would be okay if they were rival factions in, for example, animal farm where one side would become obsessed with truth and freedom, liberate itself and then begin terrorising itself. I can cope with that because an entire society goes through this change.
This isn't the case with the south park episode because you can't have an entire society made up of scientists. The idea that scientists would worship something to the point of abandoning everything that has made them what they are is just fucking stupid.
The possibility exists that none of the people depicted in the future are in fact scientists, and that they just worship something called science and are new religious nuts. In that case, what is the episode criticising? Religion. Just religion.
I should point out at this point that if you wanted to criticise extremism amongst scientists, there's loads of ways to do it. Just one is to go into the somewhat dubious methods some use to get results in under funded areas- the company I work for sells a documentary about an eastern European scientist who drilled into his patients skulls and attached electrodes to their brains in order to try and cure blindness. It didn't work. His, I suppose you could call them victims, still can't see and now have plugs in the sides of their skull that don't fit properly and leak brain fluid.
THAT's extreme science, and it would be a much more valid thing to criticise than the massive false syllogism that science + hatred of religion = religion.
The problem with the current incarnation of South Park is... it used to be mildly topical farce. Episodes like the Ladder To Heaven touched on topical issues but spent most of their time trying to be funny. Now, they appear to have abandoned the humour in favour of high level satire.
The problem is- satire is hard. Really, really hard. The list of shows that have pulled it off is very short. Yes Minister managed it, Jennifer Government managed it. South Park doesn't manage it.
I've got a final point on this subject. Trey Parker and Matt Stone are obsessed with going after targets no-one else goes after. In Team America World Police, they refused to criticise George Bush because everyone was doing that. Now, that's fair enough but that attitude can really get you into trouble. It can lead you to criticise things that you really don't have the skill to criticise.
Matt & Trey need to realise that they're not massively intelligent political commentators, they're overgrown schoolboys with a large animation budget. That's fine and has allowed them to produce some really good television. They're tried satire, it really hasn't worked. Can we have the old show back please?
Best & worst game characters
Game characters
5 Best:
Glados (Portal)
Portal would be nothing without Glados – a character so crafted that papers could be written about her descent into madness and love/hate relationship with her test subjects.
JC Denton (Deus Ex)
Deus Ex is considerably more linear than any other RPG I can think of and part of this reason is this: JC has to follow the same character arc every time. There’s a damn good reason for this – he’s a hero. He is noble, self effacing and compassionate. He is the center of Deus Ex that interacts with the other fantastic characters in the way you’d want to.
Tereese/Jenette (Vampire Bloodlines)
Few sub quests are as detailed or as clever as the one centred around the Malkavian in Santa Monica. If you know what I’m talking about, you know why these two characters are here. If you don’t, fucking go and play Bloodlines, it’s brilliant.
Aida (Unreal 2)
Aida is… charming. She is fairly generic for most of the game but becomes more and more engaging as the plot unfolds. Eventually, you begin to feel genuinely attached to her until she and the other two characters on your ship die. It’s sad but life moves on, you have things to kill. Then, when the end credits roll, you hear a message she recorded for you just before she died. It’s one of the most heart breaking moments in gaming history.
Gaz (call of duty 4)
So several great game characters have made me feel emotions for them. I felt pity for Glados & Aida, empathy for JC Denton…For Gaz I felt a new one: Respect. Gaz is an amazing character because he is skilled, unflappable and has a sense of humour. We all know that soldiers are heroes for putting their lives on the line for a cause but Gaz makes this feel utterly real.
5 Best Incidental Characters:
The ninjas (NOLF 2)
During the first (and, annoyingly, best) level of No-one lives forever 2, you are sneaking around in a sleepy Japanese village populated by ninjas. These ninjas are discussing going into town to do shopping, going out on dates and why other ninjas are pissed off with them because “she’s still mad at me about her cat”. They’re hilarious and it makes you think twice before killing them.
Sandra Renton (Deus Ex)
Now, having a character run away from home in a game adds drama and pathos to an event. In this case, you execute a gangster who was harassing the owner of a local hotel. His daughter runs away, wanting to get out of a city. You then meet her, right at the end of the game when you’ve completely forgotten about her. She is homeless but happy. It’s surprisingly touching.
The Companion Cube (Portal)
Don’t play that game, you know why this is here.
Heather (vampire bloodlines)
Heather is here for one very simple reason: She dies. She dies because of your actions in the game. Every time you talk to her, you have a chance to send the poor defenceless girl home but you never do and she dies. And it’s your fault. I’ve never felt quite so responsible for a death in any game as I have done for heather’s.
Antoinetta Marie (Oblivion)
Antoinetta (for those who don’t remember) is a 20-something year old member of the Dark Brotherhood. She is completely insane. You only learn bits and pieces about her character but she is really… sad. It’s such a shame that life treated her so badly that the only place she truly feels at home is in the company of other assassins. Sadly, you have to kill her but you can’t win them all.
5 Worst:
Bastilla (KOTOR)
Bastilla is a marvellous representation of what is wrong with the Jedi. She is pompous, annoying, self obsessed and self righteous. She is converted to the dark side half way through the game and when she pops up later I was given the choice of converting her back or killing her. Bye bye bitch.
Tommy (Prey)
PC Zone said it best: There are many great moments in Prey but the main character provides precisely none of them. It’s fine to be sceptical about the after life but I’d like to feel I’m rational enough to believe in one if I’ve visited it multiple times.
Gordon Freeman (Half Life 1,2 & episodes)
Okay so in Half Life 1, having Gordon never speak was more of a budget issue than anything else but in Half Life 2 etc. Gordon comes perilously close to ruining the entire experience. If your main character doesn’t speak (with a few exceptions) you can’t have a plot. Valve tried really, really hard with Alex, Dog, Kliener et all but no matter what they tried there was still the emotional black hole at the center of the game: Gordon bloody Freeman.
The Jackall (Far Cry 2)
The plot of Far Cry 2 doesn’t make any sense and this is entirely down to the Jackall. For most of the game you’re hunting him as he has armed the entire region you’re fighting in. It turns out at the end that he was doing it to save the country in some way that’s never made clear but do you think the country might not have needed saving if YOU HADN’T ARMED EVERYONE?
Everyone (Far Cry)
I don’t really need to follow this up, do I? There isn’t a good character anywhere near this game. Only Doyle comes close and he has a completely arbitrary character shift tacked on in the last act of the game so that’s him out
5 Best:
Glados (Portal)
Portal would be nothing without Glados – a character so crafted that papers could be written about her descent into madness and love/hate relationship with her test subjects.
JC Denton (Deus Ex)
Deus Ex is considerably more linear than any other RPG I can think of and part of this reason is this: JC has to follow the same character arc every time. There’s a damn good reason for this – he’s a hero. He is noble, self effacing and compassionate. He is the center of Deus Ex that interacts with the other fantastic characters in the way you’d want to.
Tereese/Jenette (Vampire Bloodlines)
Few sub quests are as detailed or as clever as the one centred around the Malkavian in Santa Monica. If you know what I’m talking about, you know why these two characters are here. If you don’t, fucking go and play Bloodlines, it’s brilliant.
Aida (Unreal 2)
Aida is… charming. She is fairly generic for most of the game but becomes more and more engaging as the plot unfolds. Eventually, you begin to feel genuinely attached to her until she and the other two characters on your ship die. It’s sad but life moves on, you have things to kill. Then, when the end credits roll, you hear a message she recorded for you just before she died. It’s one of the most heart breaking moments in gaming history.
Gaz (call of duty 4)
So several great game characters have made me feel emotions for them. I felt pity for Glados & Aida, empathy for JC Denton…For Gaz I felt a new one: Respect. Gaz is an amazing character because he is skilled, unflappable and has a sense of humour. We all know that soldiers are heroes for putting their lives on the line for a cause but Gaz makes this feel utterly real.
5 Best Incidental Characters:
The ninjas (NOLF 2)
During the first (and, annoyingly, best) level of No-one lives forever 2, you are sneaking around in a sleepy Japanese village populated by ninjas. These ninjas are discussing going into town to do shopping, going out on dates and why other ninjas are pissed off with them because “she’s still mad at me about her cat”. They’re hilarious and it makes you think twice before killing them.
Sandra Renton (Deus Ex)
Now, having a character run away from home in a game adds drama and pathos to an event. In this case, you execute a gangster who was harassing the owner of a local hotel. His daughter runs away, wanting to get out of a city. You then meet her, right at the end of the game when you’ve completely forgotten about her. She is homeless but happy. It’s surprisingly touching.
The Companion Cube (Portal)
Don’t play that game, you know why this is here.
Heather (vampire bloodlines)
Heather is here for one very simple reason: She dies. She dies because of your actions in the game. Every time you talk to her, you have a chance to send the poor defenceless girl home but you never do and she dies. And it’s your fault. I’ve never felt quite so responsible for a death in any game as I have done for heather’s.
Antoinetta Marie (Oblivion)
Antoinetta (for those who don’t remember) is a 20-something year old member of the Dark Brotherhood. She is completely insane. You only learn bits and pieces about her character but she is really… sad. It’s such a shame that life treated her so badly that the only place she truly feels at home is in the company of other assassins. Sadly, you have to kill her but you can’t win them all.
5 Worst:
Bastilla (KOTOR)
Bastilla is a marvellous representation of what is wrong with the Jedi. She is pompous, annoying, self obsessed and self righteous. She is converted to the dark side half way through the game and when she pops up later I was given the choice of converting her back or killing her. Bye bye bitch.
Tommy (Prey)
PC Zone said it best: There are many great moments in Prey but the main character provides precisely none of them. It’s fine to be sceptical about the after life but I’d like to feel I’m rational enough to believe in one if I’ve visited it multiple times.
Gordon Freeman (Half Life 1,2 & episodes)
Okay so in Half Life 1, having Gordon never speak was more of a budget issue than anything else but in Half Life 2 etc. Gordon comes perilously close to ruining the entire experience. If your main character doesn’t speak (with a few exceptions) you can’t have a plot. Valve tried really, really hard with Alex, Dog, Kliener et all but no matter what they tried there was still the emotional black hole at the center of the game: Gordon bloody Freeman.
The Jackall (Far Cry 2)
The plot of Far Cry 2 doesn’t make any sense and this is entirely down to the Jackall. For most of the game you’re hunting him as he has armed the entire region you’re fighting in. It turns out at the end that he was doing it to save the country in some way that’s never made clear but do you think the country might not have needed saving if YOU HADN’T ARMED EVERYONE?
Everyone (Far Cry)
I don’t really need to follow this up, do I? There isn’t a good character anywhere near this game. Only Doyle comes close and he has a completely arbitrary character shift tacked on in the last act of the game so that’s him out
Game soundtracks
What the hell is it with independant games having the best soundtracks around?
Braid's soundtrack
http://braid-game.com/news/?p=260
was one of the best every created and I've just found a download link (free and legit) for the World of Good one
http://kylegabler.com/WorldOfGooSoundtrack
which has been keeping me smiling at work for most of the day.
Anyway, I find it odd that other games don't have this level of awesomeness injected into their soundtracks. The one for Vampire Bloodlines was awesome but other than that, we haven't had much that's genuinely fantastic. And by fantastic, I mean you can listen to it independantly of the game and you still have an emotional reaction to it, as you should with all good music.
Of the best games in the last few years, Other than Braid and World of Goo, what decent music was there? Crysis Warhead, Far Cry 2, CoD4, Mass Effect, Grid, Left 4 Dead, Red Alert 3, HL2E2 etc. etc. all had music which was a gigantic Meh. Even Portal (which had that masterpiece of a song) had a soundtrack that, whilst very good, didn't transcend the game in the way you would have hoped.
I think part of the issue is every indie game is created by quite a small team, who all know the point of the project. In larger games, the sound track chaps don't feel the same level of intergration with the project so don't have the emotional attachment they need to make a truely great soundtrack.
Ah well. One more reason to buy indie games I suppose :)
Braid's soundtrack
http://braid-game.com/news/?p=260
was one of the best every created and I've just found a download link (free and legit) for the World of Good one
http://kylegabler.com/WorldOfGooSoundtrack
which has been keeping me smiling at work for most of the day.
Anyway, I find it odd that other games don't have this level of awesomeness injected into their soundtracks. The one for Vampire Bloodlines was awesome but other than that, we haven't had much that's genuinely fantastic. And by fantastic, I mean you can listen to it independantly of the game and you still have an emotional reaction to it, as you should with all good music.
Of the best games in the last few years, Other than Braid and World of Goo, what decent music was there? Crysis Warhead, Far Cry 2, CoD4, Mass Effect, Grid, Left 4 Dead, Red Alert 3, HL2E2 etc. etc. all had music which was a gigantic Meh. Even Portal (which had that masterpiece of a song) had a soundtrack that, whilst very good, didn't transcend the game in the way you would have hoped.
I think part of the issue is every indie game is created by quite a small team, who all know the point of the project. In larger games, the sound track chaps don't feel the same level of intergration with the project so don't have the emotional attachment they need to make a truely great soundtrack.
Ah well. One more reason to buy indie games I suppose :)
The Good, The Bad, The Weird
This may well be old news to some of you because this particular Korean film did the rounds of the independant film market some months ago but It's only just come to my attention via adverts (on the tube of all things) so nyurrrrr.
Anyhoo, The Good, The Bad, The Wierd is a film that takes more than a few pointers from Sergeo leone's similarly named film. Thankfully, it's considerably better than that particularly over hyped spaghetti western.
Things start off really, really well. There's a scene involving a Yakuzza boss instructing his Korean mercenary to nick a map back from some generals he's just sold it to. To this end, Korean Mercenary chap stops a train mid voyage. Things go wrong when a thief nicks the map and a bounty hunter turns up with his eyes set very firmly on the mercenary.
Now, it's really tempting to say that the film would have been better if it was half the length and set entirely on the train. The 20 minutes we spend there have so much energy and originality to them, I would have loved to see more.
In stead, the film takes us to various different localles, including a black market and a desert where the final showdown happens. The structure feels very similar to Versus - there are very long, very original action scenes intersperced with very short, quite poignant dialogue.
I was about to say that this film is eveyrthing Somkin' Aces wanted to be (which is true) when I realised that The Good, The Bad, The Wierd is incredibly derrivative. Not that that's a bad thing, mind you. The Matrix was incredibly derrivative and that was the best film of its day.
The Good, The Bad, The Weird takes elements from many walks of cinema - spaghetti western, hong kong action film, wushu martial arts, western buddy cop drama and adds that Korean spark that means you never have any idea what's going to happen in the film next.
So it's good. It's not perfect, though. The run time is two hours which is a good half hour too long- the last quater feels decidedly messy. For example, in one scene, some children are rescued from an antagonist. They are shown with their rescuer, escaping. We then cut to another character doing something inocuous and when we cut back, the children are gone. What the hell happened to them? Were they dropped off at a friendly town or something?
It's definitely worth seeing, though. It's especially good for people who don't particularly like Spaghetti Westerns (like me) because you get all the good parts with the spin of another culture to make them interesting. Huzzah!
Anyhoo, The Good, The Bad, The Wierd is a film that takes more than a few pointers from Sergeo leone's similarly named film. Thankfully, it's considerably better than that particularly over hyped spaghetti western.
Things start off really, really well. There's a scene involving a Yakuzza boss instructing his Korean mercenary to nick a map back from some generals he's just sold it to. To this end, Korean Mercenary chap stops a train mid voyage. Things go wrong when a thief nicks the map and a bounty hunter turns up with his eyes set very firmly on the mercenary.
Now, it's really tempting to say that the film would have been better if it was half the length and set entirely on the train. The 20 minutes we spend there have so much energy and originality to them, I would have loved to see more.
In stead, the film takes us to various different localles, including a black market and a desert where the final showdown happens. The structure feels very similar to Versus - there are very long, very original action scenes intersperced with very short, quite poignant dialogue.
I was about to say that this film is eveyrthing Somkin' Aces wanted to be (which is true) when I realised that The Good, The Bad, The Wierd is incredibly derrivative. Not that that's a bad thing, mind you. The Matrix was incredibly derrivative and that was the best film of its day.
The Good, The Bad, The Weird takes elements from many walks of cinema - spaghetti western, hong kong action film, wushu martial arts, western buddy cop drama and adds that Korean spark that means you never have any idea what's going to happen in the film next.
So it's good. It's not perfect, though. The run time is two hours which is a good half hour too long- the last quater feels decidedly messy. For example, in one scene, some children are rescued from an antagonist. They are shown with their rescuer, escaping. We then cut to another character doing something inocuous and when we cut back, the children are gone. What the hell happened to them? Were they dropped off at a friendly town or something?
It's definitely worth seeing, though. It's especially good for people who don't particularly like Spaghetti Westerns (like me) because you get all the good parts with the spin of another culture to make them interesting. Huzzah!
Fear 2 first impressions
So I grabbed about 20 minutes of play with Fear 2 before I had to leave for work this morning. I have the following obsorvations.
1) Bits of it are very scary. Bits of it aren't. I don't get the same sense of dread I used to whenever Alma pops up, and she pops up a LOT this time around. Having said that, there have been about three bits in the 20 minute session where I acutally shivered because I was unsettled or scared by bits of the game. That's quite rare.
2) It's very consoley. You can't aim down the iron sights or anything. The interface is all Halo/Dead Space inspired bullshit sci fi blue flashing nonsense.
3) It's incredibly easy. Even on the hard difficulty setting. I started playing it through on medium but the damn thing was so easy I cranked up the difficulty. I stopped mid fire fight to try and work out why this was - the enemies were deliberately missing me. They'd take cover okay but then when they'd fire, only one in 10 shots would actually hit me. They'd then, rather than continue firing, duck back behind cover for fear of retaliation.
I really hope this changes later in the game but it does break immersion considerably when the enemies are shooting at your shadow instead of your face.
4) Whilst your character has a name this time round, he still doesn't appear to have a voice. Way to miss the point, Monolith.
5) Yes, the game is a corridor shooter. They're quite pretty corridors, though.
6) I did enjoy it. A bit. Time will tell about the rest of the game but it's a fairly promising start.
1) Bits of it are very scary. Bits of it aren't. I don't get the same sense of dread I used to whenever Alma pops up, and she pops up a LOT this time around. Having said that, there have been about three bits in the 20 minute session where I acutally shivered because I was unsettled or scared by bits of the game. That's quite rare.
2) It's very consoley. You can't aim down the iron sights or anything. The interface is all Halo/Dead Space inspired bullshit sci fi blue flashing nonsense.
3) It's incredibly easy. Even on the hard difficulty setting. I started playing it through on medium but the damn thing was so easy I cranked up the difficulty. I stopped mid fire fight to try and work out why this was - the enemies were deliberately missing me. They'd take cover okay but then when they'd fire, only one in 10 shots would actually hit me. They'd then, rather than continue firing, duck back behind cover for fear of retaliation.
I really hope this changes later in the game but it does break immersion considerably when the enemies are shooting at your shadow instead of your face.
4) Whilst your character has a name this time round, he still doesn't appear to have a voice. Way to miss the point, Monolith.
5) Yes, the game is a corridor shooter. They're quite pretty corridors, though.
6) I did enjoy it. A bit. Time will tell about the rest of the game but it's a fairly promising start.
Wednesday, 11 February 2009
Abortion in Film & Television
There is a problem in depictions of pregnancy in films & television.
I want you to think about something for me. Take any film or television show where a woman has become unexpectedly pregnant. The two stages to this are:
1) Does she abort the foetus
2) Is she comfortable with this action
Now, I’m a man and therefore don’t know what it’s like to have a semi living being inside me. I am fairly confident, though, that there are a lot of women out there who get accidentally pregnant and just don’t want the damn thing.
Now, if you’re like me, you’ll be having considerable trouble thinking of any film or TV series where a woman has had an abortion. I’ve seen plenty of phantom pregnancies and miscarriages which are lame cop-outs for writers to avoid writing about difficult subjects.
After some considerable thought, I realised I could only think of one instance in all the television and film that I’ve seen – an episode of Battlestar Galactica in the latter half of series 2 where a woman flees her religious family in order to have her foetus aborted. We never see her reaction afterwards, only the political fallout.
Now, there can only be one reason for this: Film and television does not want to be seen as encouraging abortion.
Why the hell not?
Abortion is the single most important women’s right available, in my opinion. Deciding what to do with your body and whether or not you want to be stuck with looking after an annoying brat for the next 18 years is kind of important.
I don’t want to point the finger at religion because religion gets a lot of shit for stuff that’s not really their fault but in this instance, I think it really has to take the blame.
I can’t imagine a scenario arising in Friends, 30 Rock, Dexter, Supernatural or Family Guy (to pick four popular shows at random) where a woman aborts a foetus and is liberated by the decision because the right wing media would crucify the show and they’d probably get fined by the media regulatory board.
I really hate this bullshit attitude- the attitude that all life is sacred. It’s not. To reduce this to flippancy, Hitler’s life was definitely not sacred. I think we all wish that Hitler had been aborted as a foetus. Doesn’t that kind of prove that abortion can sometimes be a good thing?
Well, not really because it weakens the argument. The abortion debate is not one of Preserving Life vs The Right to Chose because only an idiot would favour one and not the other.
Nethertheless, the media consistently comes down on the side of preserving unborn so called life. Whether this attitude is right or not is genuinely up for debate but it would be really nice to see the other side of the argument every once in a while.
I want you to think about something for me. Take any film or television show where a woman has become unexpectedly pregnant. The two stages to this are:
1) Does she abort the foetus
2) Is she comfortable with this action
Now, I’m a man and therefore don’t know what it’s like to have a semi living being inside me. I am fairly confident, though, that there are a lot of women out there who get accidentally pregnant and just don’t want the damn thing.
Now, if you’re like me, you’ll be having considerable trouble thinking of any film or TV series where a woman has had an abortion. I’ve seen plenty of phantom pregnancies and miscarriages which are lame cop-outs for writers to avoid writing about difficult subjects.
After some considerable thought, I realised I could only think of one instance in all the television and film that I’ve seen – an episode of Battlestar Galactica in the latter half of series 2 where a woman flees her religious family in order to have her foetus aborted. We never see her reaction afterwards, only the political fallout.
Now, there can only be one reason for this: Film and television does not want to be seen as encouraging abortion.
Why the hell not?
Abortion is the single most important women’s right available, in my opinion. Deciding what to do with your body and whether or not you want to be stuck with looking after an annoying brat for the next 18 years is kind of important.
I don’t want to point the finger at religion because religion gets a lot of shit for stuff that’s not really their fault but in this instance, I think it really has to take the blame.
I can’t imagine a scenario arising in Friends, 30 Rock, Dexter, Supernatural or Family Guy (to pick four popular shows at random) where a woman aborts a foetus and is liberated by the decision because the right wing media would crucify the show and they’d probably get fined by the media regulatory board.
I really hate this bullshit attitude- the attitude that all life is sacred. It’s not. To reduce this to flippancy, Hitler’s life was definitely not sacred. I think we all wish that Hitler had been aborted as a foetus. Doesn’t that kind of prove that abortion can sometimes be a good thing?
Well, not really because it weakens the argument. The abortion debate is not one of Preserving Life vs The Right to Chose because only an idiot would favour one and not the other.
Nethertheless, the media consistently comes down on the side of preserving unborn so called life. Whether this attitude is right or not is genuinely up for debate but it would be really nice to see the other side of the argument every once in a while.
Tuesday, 10 February 2009
House M.D.
So I've been enjoying House M.D. rather a lot for the last few series. It's not a show without it's problems but up until recently the biggest one was that it was essentially the same show every week.
I quite liked that, though. Watching something where you know exactly what you're going to get is rather comforting. It was solid television. It wasn't Battlestar or Supernatural, it was Chuck. It was 30 Rock. It was solid amusing fair for people who want to wind down at the end of a day.
Things began to change in series 4 when they bought in a host of new characters. Usually this is the kiss of death for any show but, in this instance, it injected new life into proceedings. Especially thanks to the inclusion of Kal Pen (Kumar from Harold & Kumar).
Late last year, series 5 started and things weren't quite right from the get go. Now the new actors were settled into their roles, the show seemed more formulaic than ever. House has always been a show that'd fed from the angst of its characters but turning Wilson emo just to have him revert to his previous character four episodes later is somewhat bizarre. Arbitrary tragedies started attaching themselves to characters only to be completely discarded the next episode. Taub's feud with his ex-wife has evaporated completely, 13's Huntington’s is a constant source of tearful glances over slow guitar music and a promising sub plot involving Kutner's back story was resolved after one episode and never mentioned again.
It also doesn't help that the new characters started to merge with the old ones. There's an episode where 13 trusts everyone implicitly. This isn't just out of character, it's in someone else’s- Cameron. Taub is quickly becoming a crap version of Chase as well, leaving the only actually original character being Kutner.
These are minor irritations and wouldn't ruin the show were it not for two problems.
Firstly, the reliance on crap psychology is getting really annoying. House has always relied on the Sherlock Holmes logic of "I have noticed this one thing about you- that means THIS, THIS and THIS are true" and he's never wrong. This has never quite rung true but recently, the justifications for such idiocy just haven't been there. It doesn't help that the other characters seem to be participating in these idiotic logical fallacies as well. The king of these bizarre leaps of logic came in the last episode I saw before I gave up on the show in disgust- Series 5 Episode 13 - Big Baby.
In it, Foreman and 13 have hooked up (I'll get to that in a minute) and House immediately notices this. How? Because they disagreed in a differential diagnosis. Please note that previously he has known that Cameron and Chase have hooked up because they agreed during a differential. The logical extension of all of this is that everyone during every differential diagnosis everywhere is bumping pelvises like there's no tomorrow.
Problem number two is the aforementioned up hooking of 13 and Foreman. It's a match that doesn't make any damn sense. Combine this with Cuddy's recent acquisition of a baby and what do we have? New characters taking on traits of old characters, increasingly unlikely sets of characters forming relationships and unnecessary pregnancies. These are the marks of a show that's running out of ideas and is desperately trying to cling onto popularity.
Ladies and gentlemen, House M.D. has finally jumped the shark.
At least we got four decent series out of it, which is more than TV shows usually manage.
I quite liked that, though. Watching something where you know exactly what you're going to get is rather comforting. It was solid television. It wasn't Battlestar or Supernatural, it was Chuck. It was 30 Rock. It was solid amusing fair for people who want to wind down at the end of a day.
Things began to change in series 4 when they bought in a host of new characters. Usually this is the kiss of death for any show but, in this instance, it injected new life into proceedings. Especially thanks to the inclusion of Kal Pen (Kumar from Harold & Kumar).
Late last year, series 5 started and things weren't quite right from the get go. Now the new actors were settled into their roles, the show seemed more formulaic than ever. House has always been a show that'd fed from the angst of its characters but turning Wilson emo just to have him revert to his previous character four episodes later is somewhat bizarre. Arbitrary tragedies started attaching themselves to characters only to be completely discarded the next episode. Taub's feud with his ex-wife has evaporated completely, 13's Huntington’s is a constant source of tearful glances over slow guitar music and a promising sub plot involving Kutner's back story was resolved after one episode and never mentioned again.
It also doesn't help that the new characters started to merge with the old ones. There's an episode where 13 trusts everyone implicitly. This isn't just out of character, it's in someone else’s- Cameron. Taub is quickly becoming a crap version of Chase as well, leaving the only actually original character being Kutner.
These are minor irritations and wouldn't ruin the show were it not for two problems.
Firstly, the reliance on crap psychology is getting really annoying. House has always relied on the Sherlock Holmes logic of "I have noticed this one thing about you- that means THIS, THIS and THIS are true" and he's never wrong. This has never quite rung true but recently, the justifications for such idiocy just haven't been there. It doesn't help that the other characters seem to be participating in these idiotic logical fallacies as well. The king of these bizarre leaps of logic came in the last episode I saw before I gave up on the show in disgust- Series 5 Episode 13 - Big Baby.
In it, Foreman and 13 have hooked up (I'll get to that in a minute) and House immediately notices this. How? Because they disagreed in a differential diagnosis. Please note that previously he has known that Cameron and Chase have hooked up because they agreed during a differential. The logical extension of all of this is that everyone during every differential diagnosis everywhere is bumping pelvises like there's no tomorrow.
Problem number two is the aforementioned up hooking of 13 and Foreman. It's a match that doesn't make any damn sense. Combine this with Cuddy's recent acquisition of a baby and what do we have? New characters taking on traits of old characters, increasingly unlikely sets of characters forming relationships and unnecessary pregnancies. These are the marks of a show that's running out of ideas and is desperately trying to cling onto popularity.
Ladies and gentlemen, House M.D. has finally jumped the shark.
At least we got four decent series out of it, which is more than TV shows usually manage.
Monday, 9 February 2009
The Console War
This rant is more for me than anyone else (plus ca change) as I have been surfing the interblag for most of my lunch time and have come across more than what I consider to be my fair share of supposedly enlightened commentary on the current console war.
I realise I am now adding to the sheer volume of this but at least I’m having the good grace to rant on his blog where members of the public are hugely unlikely to see it.
A traditional place to start when talking about the console war is to go on a lengthy rant talking about which console is best. This is pointless for two reasons. Firstly, it’s all a matter of taste and your opinion is going to be coloured by whatever console you happen to own. Secondly, and most importantly, each of the three current generation consoles is deeply, deeply flawed so the question can’t have a definitive answer.
To briefly summarise the flaws: the PS3 is too expensive and is a bitch to programme for, despite having worse graphics than the 360, so it takes ages to port anything to it. The 360 hardware has a bad case of the gremlins and the Wii doesn’t have any fucking games out.
Each system has individual problems. They all share one huge one: Exclusivity.
So I happen to own two of the consoles: The 360 and the Wii, and these both have exclusive titles. The wii has the Mario games of course, as well as Metroid and Zelda and blah blah blah. The 360 has Gears of War, the PS3 has metal gear solid.
Now. I want to ask one very, very simple question.
Why are these games exclusive to these consoles?
If you’re going to tell me that people will buy the consoles to buy the games for it, I will agree that it’s a logical argument but it’s also totally wrong. If you’ve read this far, you will know as well as I do that neither Sony nor Microsoft make and fucking money from the consoles – it all comes from the games. Also, if Nintendo allowed – for example – Super Smash Brothers Brawl to be released on other systems, they would make infinitely more money than they’d make otherwise from the pitiful profit they make on the consoles they sell.
So console exclusives don’t make any sense. Why do they do it then? Well the only reason I can think of is because it creates a sense of belonging to a CLUB. Humans love to divide themselves into THEM and US situations and it seems to work.
Look at Gears of War. It’s a 360 exclusive and has an attach rate of about 80% (an attach rate, to be slightly patronising, is the number of people who buy a game vs the number of consoles that have been sold). Why is this? Well it’s not because it’s a good game. It’s okay. It’s not bad but compared to something like Call of Duty 4, it’s pathetic.
That doesn’t matter to people, though. People bought it because NO OTHER SYSTEM COULD PLAY IT. Apart from the pc. But no-one cares about them because they’re not proper games. How could they be? They play games on the same machine you use to make SPREAD SHEETS.
So loads of people bought it for the 360. Probably more than would have bought it if it was released for all three consoles because if it hadn’t had that air of exclusivity people would have seen it for what it is – a reasonable game that isn’t as good as a lot of other stuff that’s available.
This is also true of Metal Gear Solid 4 with its half hour cutscenes, Metroid Prime: Corruption with its rinse and repeat gunfights, Halo, Zelda, Heavenly Sword etc. etc. etc.
What’s the problem, then? If these games aren’t anything to write home about, why complain about it?
Well, it hurts us, the consumers.
If people buy titles which aren’t as good as non exclusive titles and then go on and on and on about how great these exclusive titles are – the reviews and sales figures suggest that what people want is not more games like Call of Duty 4 – we want another bloody Halo game.
So what’s the solution? Well, the console makers could try making games only for their console – no multi format releases at all. This would lead to genuine console specialisation. Nintendo have proved that this doesn’t really work though. You could buy all the current generation consoles, which is frankly moronic as the PS3 and 360 are essentially the same system with a very slightly different game library.
Other than those options, there’s not much the consumer can do. Other than wait.
Wait for what?
Well, I don’t know about you, but games consoles are really beginning to resemble PC’s… they have online marketplaces, instant messaging and you can surf the net on some of them. People love these features. So how long will it be before they start bundling a keyboard and mouse with the systems so you can type and surf the net properly?
So once that happens, you’re essentially buying a proper computer, just with a vastly simplified operating system. By that time, because of all the extra stuff that gets put on these systems, you’ll be playing on something that resembles OSX more than PSL and you’ll just be playing games on a home computer that happens to be on your telly.
Current trends (especially with stuff like the Iphone) are towards miniaturisation and homogenisation. Making things smaller and collecting them together. As I don’t know anyone who ones a games console that doesn’t also own a computer, I think that those two devices are going to merge in a few generations time.
Of course, I’m probably wrong. Sorry, you may have wasted your time.
I realise I am now adding to the sheer volume of this but at least I’m having the good grace to rant on his blog where members of the public are hugely unlikely to see it.
A traditional place to start when talking about the console war is to go on a lengthy rant talking about which console is best. This is pointless for two reasons. Firstly, it’s all a matter of taste and your opinion is going to be coloured by whatever console you happen to own. Secondly, and most importantly, each of the three current generation consoles is deeply, deeply flawed so the question can’t have a definitive answer.
To briefly summarise the flaws: the PS3 is too expensive and is a bitch to programme for, despite having worse graphics than the 360, so it takes ages to port anything to it. The 360 hardware has a bad case of the gremlins and the Wii doesn’t have any fucking games out.
Each system has individual problems. They all share one huge one: Exclusivity.
So I happen to own two of the consoles: The 360 and the Wii, and these both have exclusive titles. The wii has the Mario games of course, as well as Metroid and Zelda and blah blah blah. The 360 has Gears of War, the PS3 has metal gear solid.
Now. I want to ask one very, very simple question.
Why are these games exclusive to these consoles?
If you’re going to tell me that people will buy the consoles to buy the games for it, I will agree that it’s a logical argument but it’s also totally wrong. If you’ve read this far, you will know as well as I do that neither Sony nor Microsoft make and fucking money from the consoles – it all comes from the games. Also, if Nintendo allowed – for example – Super Smash Brothers Brawl to be released on other systems, they would make infinitely more money than they’d make otherwise from the pitiful profit they make on the consoles they sell.
So console exclusives don’t make any sense. Why do they do it then? Well the only reason I can think of is because it creates a sense of belonging to a CLUB. Humans love to divide themselves into THEM and US situations and it seems to work.
Look at Gears of War. It’s a 360 exclusive and has an attach rate of about 80% (an attach rate, to be slightly patronising, is the number of people who buy a game vs the number of consoles that have been sold). Why is this? Well it’s not because it’s a good game. It’s okay. It’s not bad but compared to something like Call of Duty 4, it’s pathetic.
That doesn’t matter to people, though. People bought it because NO OTHER SYSTEM COULD PLAY IT. Apart from the pc. But no-one cares about them because they’re not proper games. How could they be? They play games on the same machine you use to make SPREAD SHEETS.
So loads of people bought it for the 360. Probably more than would have bought it if it was released for all three consoles because if it hadn’t had that air of exclusivity people would have seen it for what it is – a reasonable game that isn’t as good as a lot of other stuff that’s available.
This is also true of Metal Gear Solid 4 with its half hour cutscenes, Metroid Prime: Corruption with its rinse and repeat gunfights, Halo, Zelda, Heavenly Sword etc. etc. etc.
What’s the problem, then? If these games aren’t anything to write home about, why complain about it?
Well, it hurts us, the consumers.
If people buy titles which aren’t as good as non exclusive titles and then go on and on and on about how great these exclusive titles are – the reviews and sales figures suggest that what people want is not more games like Call of Duty 4 – we want another bloody Halo game.
So what’s the solution? Well, the console makers could try making games only for their console – no multi format releases at all. This would lead to genuine console specialisation. Nintendo have proved that this doesn’t really work though. You could buy all the current generation consoles, which is frankly moronic as the PS3 and 360 are essentially the same system with a very slightly different game library.
Other than those options, there’s not much the consumer can do. Other than wait.
Wait for what?
Well, I don’t know about you, but games consoles are really beginning to resemble PC’s… they have online marketplaces, instant messaging and you can surf the net on some of them. People love these features. So how long will it be before they start bundling a keyboard and mouse with the systems so you can type and surf the net properly?
So once that happens, you’re essentially buying a proper computer, just with a vastly simplified operating system. By that time, because of all the extra stuff that gets put on these systems, you’ll be playing on something that resembles OSX more than PSL and you’ll just be playing games on a home computer that happens to be on your telly.
Current trends (especially with stuff like the Iphone) are towards miniaturisation and homogenisation. Making things smaller and collecting them together. As I don’t know anyone who ones a games console that doesn’t also own a computer, I think that those two devices are going to merge in a few generations time.
Of course, I’m probably wrong. Sorry, you may have wasted your time.
In defense of Gothism
Mark Steel wrote a defense of Lord Byron saying that no matter what you think of his poetry, one thing about him is very important. In an age of political sell outs and an increasing celebrity culture, he had passion. He cared about things.
These days, passion is increasingly hard to find- it can be found in small places but in the entertainment industry, can we really say that this music represents passion:
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=V3Kd7IGPyeg
(Coldplay – The Scientist)
Or this
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=FZzqBqTqrZA
(The Killers – Spaceman)
And they’re the more respectable face of contemporary music. Don’t get me started on Britney or Beyonce or Alexandra Burke.
Let’s compare that, briefly, with probably the most manufactured metal band to emerge in recent years, Linkin Park:
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=KViOrW-r1O8
(Linkin Park – Crawling)
Now, the cynics amongst us know that Linkin Park formed part of Warner Brothers’ Alternative Mainstream Profit Base for the year of 2000/2001 but in spite of this, you feel something when listening to the music. Whether it’s exhilaration, irritation or disgust- there’s something there.
What’s there in the coldplay/killers track? Nothing. I can respect them as musicians and the Killers track would be quite catchy if I could forgive them for the whole “I’ve got soul but I’m not a soldier” thing - http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=WSLfoZLgEQg) but once you get past the technically proficient nature of the music- what’s there?
I’m not talking about standing for things, by the way. Bono and Phil Collins stand for things, it doesn’t make their music any less bland.
I then compare this to what was my favorite band when I was growing up, Cradle of Filth:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-jLjjZnrRlc
(Cradle of Filth – From the Cradle To Enslave)
Now, I don’t care what you think about that song musically but what’s really important is it gets a genuine emotional reaction from people. Some hear white noise and want to turn it off, some (like me) feel a wave of… rage and exhilaration.
Even songs by My Chemical Romance that feature the words:
“You said you read me like a book but the pages are all torn and frayed”
Which is about a whiney and teenage as you can get represent emotion – in that particular instance they represent sitting in your bedroom crying about how no-one loves you but that’s something…
That Killers song has no emotion to it…. It’s just there.
And for that reason, if nothing else, is why Goth, emo, indie & metal music deserves your respect.
Well. Possibly not respect. Something.
I’ll shut up now. Sorry.
These days, passion is increasingly hard to find- it can be found in small places but in the entertainment industry, can we really say that this music represents passion:
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=V3Kd7IGPyeg
(Coldplay – The Scientist)
Or this
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=FZzqBqTqrZA
(The Killers – Spaceman)
And they’re the more respectable face of contemporary music. Don’t get me started on Britney or Beyonce or Alexandra Burke.
Let’s compare that, briefly, with probably the most manufactured metal band to emerge in recent years, Linkin Park:
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=KViOrW-r1O8
(Linkin Park – Crawling)
Now, the cynics amongst us know that Linkin Park formed part of Warner Brothers’ Alternative Mainstream Profit Base for the year of 2000/2001 but in spite of this, you feel something when listening to the music. Whether it’s exhilaration, irritation or disgust- there’s something there.
What’s there in the coldplay/killers track? Nothing. I can respect them as musicians and the Killers track would be quite catchy if I could forgive them for the whole “I’ve got soul but I’m not a soldier” thing - http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=WSLfoZLgEQg) but once you get past the technically proficient nature of the music- what’s there?
I’m not talking about standing for things, by the way. Bono and Phil Collins stand for things, it doesn’t make their music any less bland.
I then compare this to what was my favorite band when I was growing up, Cradle of Filth:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-jLjjZnrRlc
(Cradle of Filth – From the Cradle To Enslave)
Now, I don’t care what you think about that song musically but what’s really important is it gets a genuine emotional reaction from people. Some hear white noise and want to turn it off, some (like me) feel a wave of… rage and exhilaration.
Even songs by My Chemical Romance that feature the words:
“You said you read me like a book but the pages are all torn and frayed”
Which is about a whiney and teenage as you can get represent emotion – in that particular instance they represent sitting in your bedroom crying about how no-one loves you but that’s something…
That Killers song has no emotion to it…. It’s just there.
And for that reason, if nothing else, is why Goth, emo, indie & metal music deserves your respect.
Well. Possibly not respect. Something.
I’ll shut up now. Sorry.
KOTOR 2: The Sith Lords
So for those of you who have played KOTOR 2: The Sith Lords, there's hope out there. Hope that the game might actually end up being finished one of these days.
This may seem a little bit redundant after Mass Effect has been released but I'm sure I'm not alone in considering that particular game something of a disapointment. Anyhoo, if you care, there is hope. It's called The Sith Lords Restoration Project (or TSLRP) and can be found here:
http://www.team-gizka.org/
There is an issue, though. Other resoration projects (such as the Wesp patches for Vampire Bloodlines) have updated the game gradually, fixing errors as they arise. Team Gizka, though, are waiting for the project to be complete before they release it.
TSLRP is all about creating the game The Sith Lords should always have been- this means restoring ending sequences (we’re promised actual endings this time), a whole new group of people who want to kill you and the long lost HK droid factory. If that doesn’t mean anything to you, the short version is this: New levels, new character arcs and new enemies.
A lot of the new content should take place in the infamous last quarter of the game. Anyone who’s played The Sith Lords knows the bit I mean. You and your team hunt down Darth Nihilus, his ship blows up and all the character arcs suddenly stop in their tracks. The most amusing instance of this is probably Visas’s dialogue who is left professing her love for you over and over and over and over again because her dialogue triggers weren’t implemented properly.
This would all be fantastic if we lived in the land of milk and fairies but introducing this amount of content comes with a lot of problems. The reason the content wasn’t included in the first place was because it was very, very far from being bug free. Most of the work Team Gizka are putting in consists of making the game in any way stable. Because of this, it’s not a project that can be completed over night.
To be brutally honest, though, it's not a project that can be completed at all. I mentioned Wesp's Vampire Bloodlines patches earlier. They're still being released, five years after the original game was. The Sith Lords is no different. I make a point of checking their bug count every month or so because I live in the vain hope that the damn thing will be released at some point.
For the last four months, the bug count has gone up, not down.
They're currently at 84.
I do respect their wanting to release a perfect product but they're bedroom programmers. Fucking VALVE never release a perfect product, what makes them think they can? Arrogant pricks.
Sorry.
This all smarts slightly because if you look around their forums, there are constant posts asking for them to just give us a damn release, pretty pretty please? They're always met with open hostility.
Thankfully, all is not lost. Version 1.08 of the game leaked onto the torrent sites so you can get at it. It's by no means bug free but it's probably the only version of this damn mod we'll see any time soon so fill your boots, as the poet said.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)