Some games, you stop playing because they're bad. Some games you stop playing because you don't like them. There is a crucial difference. I'd describe the difference as Fallout being the former and Dragon Age being the latter.
As I've blogged previously, I'm prepared to admit that the plot/characters of Fallout 3 are good but the game is so overwhelmingly bad that it suffocates everything it comes into contact with. I go back to it occasionally in the vain hope that I missed something the first three times and I never make it more than a few hours in because the game pisses me off so much.
Dragon Age has a similar problem but it's much reduced. As far as I'm concerned, the only real problem with Dragon Age is the grinding. The levels are just too long and there is a hell of a lot of faffing about. Seriously, you see one dungeon, you've seen them all. I solved that problem this time around, though. I played it on easy and made my character immortal. You'd be amazed at the amount that cuts down the grind.
But why am I going back to Dragon Age anyway? Well, I'm bored. I'm bored, there's nothing else out and, let's face it, there is *something* about Dragon Age that keeps me coming back for more.
So, a week ago, I finally completed it. After it's original release about a year ago.
One of the things I've found about Dragon Age is... the characters I originally liked this time around ended up being the least interesting. I'll go through them:
Morrigan:
I found Morrigan the most interesting when I first played through Dragon Age. She's got a fun little side quest involving Flemmeth and she's... independent. Games (that aren't Overlord or Mirrors Edge) are written by men and so there are two usual types of females that pop up: Femme Fatales and simpering milksops. Morrigan is neither. She is strong and doesn't really care what anyone thinks.
The slight problem arises when we consider Morrigan's morality. She's not exactly dark side but she's definitely not a paragon either. When I first played I could never really guess what actions she would approve of. On the one hand that's kind of a good thing - Bioware created a character who isn't entirely predictable. On the other I kind of suspect that Bioware had two characters in mind when they created Morrigan and forgot to seperate them.
The thing that finally made me pissed off with Morrigan's character, though, is she doesn't change. The other characters you can influence for better or worse but Morrigan's story is tied into the games to the point where the other characters have ten endings, depending on your actions, she has a grand total of three, one of which is a very slight variation of ending #2.
Dragon Age is an RPG. It's all about the characters interaction with the PC. If you can't change or manipulate the characters, a crucial element has been lost and leaves the player (or me, at least) extremely unsatisfied.
Alastair:
Alastair is the quote unquote funny character. How funny he is depends on your point of view, naturally, but it's fair to say he's far from one of the great comedy characters. He has a few really good lines but they're mainly in the random banter between the NPCs whilst you're wandering around and almost all the characters get some good lines there.
Part of my problem with Alastair arose when I played Awakening, the expansion to Dragon Age. There, you meet Anders. A mage who you are introduced to shooting flames from his hands into the face of a darkspawn. He then shakes them with a look of shock on his face. He never says "hothothothot" but you can see he wants to. Anders is clearly the character they meant for Alastair but, for whatever reason, they never quite managed it.
I did end up quite liking Alastair this time around, though. Why? Because my female elf romanced him.
For all of Alastair's sarcasm and confidence, as soon as your lady starts flirting with him he turns into a 15 year old boy - it's revealed he's never had sex and it's doubtful if he's kissed anyone before. This is a pretty damn bold move to make, IMO. It's really rare that anyone is revealed to be a virgin unless there is a *very* specific (usually religious) reason for it. With Alastair, it adds a really nice dimension to his character and makes the choices you have to make at the end of the game that bit harder.
Leliana:
The Innocent Looking Woman With A Secret is one of those stock characters that pop up every once in a while. Leliana doesn't really subvert it that much. I did think they were going to do something interesting with having her being a completely insane religious fundamentalist but that never really materialised. Sadly.
Wynn:
Wynn at first appears to be an incredibly boring stock character. As you progress, though, and if you use her a lot you start getting a better feel for her character. Spoiler warning but she's dying and she's fine with it.
Having a character with death hanging over their head isn't exactly a new thing - Bioware did exactly the same thing with Fish Boy in Mass Effect 2 but it's done really well in Dragon Age. Part of the reason for this, I think, is that it doesn't turn up in conversation. There is no heartfelt confession that "this might be my last days on earth" or whatever. You get ambushed, fight off the attackers and prepare to leave. On the way, though Wynne just collapses.
It comes so completely out of no-where, I was really shocked. I was also pissed off. I liked Wynn. She was sweet, she had established herself as a mother figure/MILF to most of my team and she was touchingly concerned about my relationship with Leilana (I was shagging her at the time. I'm an NPC slut). I didn't want Wynne to die, I liked her. I then talked to her about it.
Now, a little backstory about me. I'll keep it brief I promise. I've been terrified of death since I've been very young - not exactly death but the idea of oblivion. My conciousness being extinguished. I'm terrified of it. Occasionally pacing round my room, punching walls, terrified. So yeah, it's fair to say that I occasionally get a bit freaked when death is openly discussed. This one conversation with Wynn really struck a chord with me, though.
My character was talking to Wynn, asking if there was anything that could be done. She said no. My character said that was awful. She said, why? My character said: Because everyone always wants more.
This one conversation has made me think that my attitude is childish. Very childish. Why am I terrified? I want more. I want more, I want more, I want more. Why? Shut up and leave me alone. I find it amazing that a piece of writing to cut through this attitude so simply and in such a low key way. This wasn't a grand dramatic conversation held at a key point in the game, it was just a chat between two friends.
That, I think, says a lot about the general quality of the writing in Dragon Age. Even the conversations they don't really expect people to get to on their first or second play throughs are brilliantly constructed and delivered. And she gives your doggy a bath. It's hilarious.
Ogrehn:
I pretty much ignored Ogrehn on my first two playthroughs. He was a berserk dwarf. Be still my beating heart, I've never come across a character that original.
Once I started talking to him a bit more, however, I found he was fucking hilarious. Admittedly, they save his funniest moment for Awakening but he gets plenty of great laughs in Origins. He tries, at various points, to pick a fight with you, thinking you were someone else, sleep with you, and yell at your dog - all whilst completely drunk. He's quite sweet as well, in that he has a very simple view of the world. He wants two things, beer and things to kill. So long as he has those, he's happy. In some hands, that would be a simplistic character. It's tiny touches that stop that being the case with Ogrehn. Part of this is his weird relationship with Brankha - his ex-wife. Part of it is how much he likes the PC. Either way, Bioware did well to take a stereotype and make him something much more fun and interesting.
Sten:
Sten is incredibly boring and I could never be bothered to talk to him.
Zevran:
Zevran wins the prize for Most Stupid Way Of Getting A Companion To Join Your Party. Long story short, he and a bunch of chaps try to ambush and kill you, he's not quite dead so you let him join you. Not a formula for a trusting relationship.
Zevran has his moments but most of the interesting stuff about him is centred around the group of Assassins he uesd to belong to - The Crows. I was fully expecting to hunt down and kill his employers at some point in the game and was pretty disappointed when I didn't. Other than that, he's not massively interesting.
So yes, as far as the characters go:
Good!
Ogrehn
Wynn
Alastair
Meh!
Leilana
Zevran
Bad!
Morrigan
Sten
Bonus character: Shale
Shale is awesome and wants to kill every pigeon in the world. I'm with him on that.
Sunday, 25 July 2010
Monday, 19 July 2010
Inception
I was going to try and talk about this film without spoilers but that's going to be impossible. I'll try and tag them but it's best not to read this unless you've seen Inception.
Okay, so I think what you do on the walk home from the cinema is incredibly important. Especially when you've just seen a 10/10 film. After Zombieland, I listened to classic metal (Iron Maiden & Saxon) on the way home whilst fighting off imaginary zombies. After Whip It, I kept laughing and smiling like an idiot, remembering all the fun little touches that film had.
After Inception, I walked home with no music at all and tried to work out what the fuck just happened.
Inception is a briliant film. The acting, editing and so on are all fucking briliant. There's no way to go into everything, besides. I need to see it again. I saw the Dark Knight when my girlfriend was really ill. She didn't feel like going. I saw it and then, when the GF felt better five hours later that day, I went to see it again with her. I kinda wish I could do that again but I've got work tomorrow and it's 1am now.
Christopher Nolan likes his complex films. I really, really hope this is as succesful as it deserves to be. I hope it's the most successful film of the year because that will mean:
1) The Most succesful film of the year is and original Interlectual Property
2) The most succesful film of the year is a *total* mindfuck.
Ok so the most important thing I can say about Inception is - It's been a very long time since I've gasped or bitten my fingers in the cinema. The biting was because the film was so goddamn tense.
As far as the plot goes - there are three major interpretations of what happened and... I like all of them. Usually I'd prefer it if the film came down on one side or the other because *normally* when there are multiple interpretations of what happened, the film makers come down slightly on one side, which makes it a bit annoying and pointless. Here, as far as I can work out, it's EXACTLY 50/50.
So what did I like?
Well, all the main actors were, frankly, briliant. My personal favourite was Joseph Gordon-Levitt. He was charismatic, funny and kicked a hell of a lot of arse. Marion Cotillard definitely deserves a mention as well. She walked the line perfectly between fucked up and fucking creepy.
The action was briliant - it was never exactly gratuitous but there was a definite sense of danger. It never really got better than Joseph GL fighting in the hotel though - the gravity sections were.... astonishing. I'm a massive film geek and I have no idea how they did the majority of those gravity effects.
Basically, the main strength of Inception is it constantly has you questioning the nature of the world you're presented with but it doesn't do it in a pretentious "What does this all MEAN?" way. It does it in an awesome headfuck way.
It moves at an incredible pace - covering a lot of time and a lot of really complex ideas but at the same time it knows when to take time.
Essentially, Christopher Nolan is a fucking genius and absolutely deserves the money Hollywood are throwing at him. He made something so original and so brilliantly done- stuff like that is *so* rare. We should be very, very happy with it.
Oh, and Leo DiCaprio does tortured very well doesn't he. He did it better here than he did in Shutter Island but Nolan is a much better director than Scorsese is...
Okay, so I think what you do on the walk home from the cinema is incredibly important. Especially when you've just seen a 10/10 film. After Zombieland, I listened to classic metal (Iron Maiden & Saxon) on the way home whilst fighting off imaginary zombies. After Whip It, I kept laughing and smiling like an idiot, remembering all the fun little touches that film had.
After Inception, I walked home with no music at all and tried to work out what the fuck just happened.
Inception is a briliant film. The acting, editing and so on are all fucking briliant. There's no way to go into everything, besides. I need to see it again. I saw the Dark Knight when my girlfriend was really ill. She didn't feel like going. I saw it and then, when the GF felt better five hours later that day, I went to see it again with her. I kinda wish I could do that again but I've got work tomorrow and it's 1am now.
Christopher Nolan likes his complex films. I really, really hope this is as succesful as it deserves to be. I hope it's the most successful film of the year because that will mean:
1) The Most succesful film of the year is and original Interlectual Property
2) The most succesful film of the year is a *total* mindfuck.
Ok so the most important thing I can say about Inception is - It's been a very long time since I've gasped or bitten my fingers in the cinema. The biting was because the film was so goddamn tense.
As far as the plot goes - there are three major interpretations of what happened and... I like all of them. Usually I'd prefer it if the film came down on one side or the other because *normally* when there are multiple interpretations of what happened, the film makers come down slightly on one side, which makes it a bit annoying and pointless. Here, as far as I can work out, it's EXACTLY 50/50.
So what did I like?
Well, all the main actors were, frankly, briliant. My personal favourite was Joseph Gordon-Levitt. He was charismatic, funny and kicked a hell of a lot of arse. Marion Cotillard definitely deserves a mention as well. She walked the line perfectly between fucked up and fucking creepy.
The action was briliant - it was never exactly gratuitous but there was a definite sense of danger. It never really got better than Joseph GL fighting in the hotel though - the gravity sections were.... astonishing. I'm a massive film geek and I have no idea how they did the majority of those gravity effects.
Basically, the main strength of Inception is it constantly has you questioning the nature of the world you're presented with but it doesn't do it in a pretentious "What does this all MEAN?" way. It does it in an awesome headfuck way.
It moves at an incredible pace - covering a lot of time and a lot of really complex ideas but at the same time it knows when to take time.
Essentially, Christopher Nolan is a fucking genius and absolutely deserves the money Hollywood are throwing at him. He made something so original and so brilliantly done- stuff like that is *so* rare. We should be very, very happy with it.
Oh, and Leo DiCaprio does tortured very well doesn't he. He did it better here than he did in Shutter Island but Nolan is a much better director than Scorsese is...
Friday, 16 July 2010
PC Zone
PC Zone is dead.
For those who don't know, PC Zone magazine has run for 17 years - is English and is only eight years younger than I am. I've been reading it pretty consistently since my age reached double figures. It was much loved by its readers for its impartiality, wicked sense of humour and knack for finding writing talent in unlikely places including Charlie Brooker and David McCandless. Rhianna Pratchett also wrote for them but not very much.
Now, their demise comes as no great surprise to me. Their readership has only been about 11,000 per month. I was one of those readers but the mag was monthly. The problem with that was that literally everything they printed... I all ready knew. I knew about everything in the news and reviews section weeks before the magazine hit my post box. This has been the case for the past year and I've only continued to subscribe up to now because it's easier than working out how to stop.
But the news that they're folding does sadden me. It's a part of PC gaming heritage dying right there. More than that, though, it's a part of my childhood. Like most geeks, I had a pretty shitty time of it at school and games really helped me get through the bad bits. How did I find out about games? How did I work out which games to buy? Where did I get the game demos? And that's even before we get onto the purile humour (which was awesome, by the way) of the Cybertwats and the like.
So yes. I don't really have anything particularly original to say other than that. PC Zone were great when they were great. Recently they became slightly redundant but for a good 15 years of their 17 year run, they were absolutely peerless. This is my equivalent of speaking at their funeral. Normally I don't like saying things that have all ready been said a billion times on the internet but... I just wanted to let the internet know that Zone will be missed.
For those who don't know, PC Zone magazine has run for 17 years - is English and is only eight years younger than I am. I've been reading it pretty consistently since my age reached double figures. It was much loved by its readers for its impartiality, wicked sense of humour and knack for finding writing talent in unlikely places including Charlie Brooker and David McCandless. Rhianna Pratchett also wrote for them but not very much.
Now, their demise comes as no great surprise to me. Their readership has only been about 11,000 per month. I was one of those readers but the mag was monthly. The problem with that was that literally everything they printed... I all ready knew. I knew about everything in the news and reviews section weeks before the magazine hit my post box. This has been the case for the past year and I've only continued to subscribe up to now because it's easier than working out how to stop.
But the news that they're folding does sadden me. It's a part of PC gaming heritage dying right there. More than that, though, it's a part of my childhood. Like most geeks, I had a pretty shitty time of it at school and games really helped me get through the bad bits. How did I find out about games? How did I work out which games to buy? Where did I get the game demos? And that's even before we get onto the purile humour (which was awesome, by the way) of the Cybertwats and the like.
So yes. I don't really have anything particularly original to say other than that. PC Zone were great when they were great. Recently they became slightly redundant but for a good 15 years of their 17 year run, they were absolutely peerless. This is my equivalent of speaking at their funeral. Normally I don't like saying things that have all ready been said a billion times on the internet but... I just wanted to let the internet know that Zone will be missed.
Sunday, 11 July 2010
Film in 2010
Okay, so in 2009 I moaned that there weren't any decent films coming out.
I should have kept my mouth shut because this year looks like it's going to be even worse.
Granted, Inception is coming out next week and that should be really good. Christopher Nolan hasn't let us down for a while. And we've also got Knight and Day coming up which might be good. It got a pretty bad write up from the AV club but film reviewers often get it completely wrong when it comes to silly action films.
Those are literally the only films I'm looking forward to in 2010 or 2011. Reh.
So what have we had this year?
In the order I saw them:
From Paris with love (5/10)
Now. This is in no way a good film. What it is is *incredibly* silly. One of the characters carries around a vase full of cocaine for most of the film. Why? Fuck you, that's why. It's loud, crude, stupid and quite fun. As long as your brain is well and truely off, you might enjoy it.
Shutter Island (7/10)
So you know where I stand, I have never seen a Martin Scorsese film that I liked and I've only seen Leo DiCaprio in Romeo & Juliet and Titanic. I went in with suitably low expectations, therefore. I was pleasantly surprised. Granted, the music was so over the top it usually took me completely out of the moment and there is one particular scene at the end which was completely impossible to act well. It should really have been cut. Ignoring those two slight problems, it was very good. But I can't help think you should really read the book instead.
Green Zone (6/10)
Now, the problem with Green Zone is that whilst everything about it is pretty good, the plot is bollocks. I say bollocks, the plot is exactly what happened in the iraq war. The Americans went in expecting to find WMD (because the bosses had lied about them being there) they don't find them, they go WTF, they try to find the truth, the truth gets hushed up. We all know this is what happened and we really didn't need a film set four years after the "end" of the war to tell us this. Other than that, it's perfectly fine.
The Girl with The Dragon Tattoo (6/10)
Sadly, another case of People Should Just Read The Book. In many ways, it's a very good adaptation of Stieg Larrson's book and if you're not a big reader, you should probably see the film. There is one major problem with it, though. TGWTDT focuses on a 30 year old murder mystery. A disgraced journalist is brought in to have one last stab at it. In the book, he spends about six months getting no-where and then he has one lucky break, follows it up with a lot of *really* hard work and starts making headway with the mystery. The problem is, the film is a film. It has to move at a fairly quick pace or the audience get bored. As a result, they cut out the really hard work and just have the bits where he makes headway through luck or deductions that seem really obvious. Also, we don't really spend much time with the suspects in the case as the film (rightly) focuses on other stuff so when everything comes to a head, a character rears their ugly head and you have no idea who they are or what the significance of their role is. These are problems that were inevitable and would only have been solved if it had been made into a TV show instead. Which would have been a much better idea, sadly.
Kick Ass (3/10)
Kick Ass was boring, made little sense and had a very annoying main character. This would have been forgiveable if it was funny but far too often replaced wit with swearing. Having a little girl say Cunt is funny a couple of times but you can't stretch this to a 90 minute film.
Whip It (10/10)
I judge a film a lot based on how I feel on the walk home from the cinema. After Zombieland, I felt the need for classic rock music. After Whip it, I couldn't stop grinning. Whip It is a funny film, it's got a lot of heart, a plot that makes sense, great characters and it passes the Bechtel Test with flying colours. I recommend it to everyone. And it has maybe from Arrested Development in it.
Iron Man 2 (2/10)
Iron Man 1 was a fun action film that happened to be based on a comic book. Iron Man 2 was a comic book come to life and I don't mean that in a good way. Iron Man 2 made me realise I hate comic books with their terrible dialogue, villains with incredibly sketchy motivation, action scenes that completely defy all known laws of physics... Iron Man 2 has made me swear off all comic book films that aren't being directed by Christoper Nolan or someone similarly talented. And it has Scarlett Johansen in, which is never good. She's not the worst thing in the film, though. Which is, frankly, astonishing.
If I had to list the films wrong with it from most to least severe, I'd start with the action sequences which are on a stupidity par with those of Terminator 4. That's the early ones. The ones at the end of the film actually bored me. Like the ones in Public Enemies did. Look, I'm an action geek, ok? I love action films. Even the silly ones. Especially the silly ones. Crank? Awesome. Shoot em Up? Fantastic. An action sequence has to be really bad for me not to see any merit in it at all.
Then we've got the plot which is just one huge trailer for the Marvel Franchise Avengers thing, which I don't give a shit about and am definitely not going to see after this, thank you very much.
Then we have Scarlett Johansen.
Then everything else.
Bah.
So yeah, 2010. Much worse than 2009 so far.
And 2011 isn't looking too hot either.
I sound like a grumpy old man. I just want some good films. Is that too much to ask? For it to be like 2008 again?
/cries
I should have kept my mouth shut because this year looks like it's going to be even worse.
Granted, Inception is coming out next week and that should be really good. Christopher Nolan hasn't let us down for a while. And we've also got Knight and Day coming up which might be good. It got a pretty bad write up from the AV club but film reviewers often get it completely wrong when it comes to silly action films.
Those are literally the only films I'm looking forward to in 2010 or 2011. Reh.
So what have we had this year?
In the order I saw them:
From Paris with love (5/10)
Now. This is in no way a good film. What it is is *incredibly* silly. One of the characters carries around a vase full of cocaine for most of the film. Why? Fuck you, that's why. It's loud, crude, stupid and quite fun. As long as your brain is well and truely off, you might enjoy it.
Shutter Island (7/10)
So you know where I stand, I have never seen a Martin Scorsese film that I liked and I've only seen Leo DiCaprio in Romeo & Juliet and Titanic. I went in with suitably low expectations, therefore. I was pleasantly surprised. Granted, the music was so over the top it usually took me completely out of the moment and there is one particular scene at the end which was completely impossible to act well. It should really have been cut. Ignoring those two slight problems, it was very good. But I can't help think you should really read the book instead.
Green Zone (6/10)
Now, the problem with Green Zone is that whilst everything about it is pretty good, the plot is bollocks. I say bollocks, the plot is exactly what happened in the iraq war. The Americans went in expecting to find WMD (because the bosses had lied about them being there) they don't find them, they go WTF, they try to find the truth, the truth gets hushed up. We all know this is what happened and we really didn't need a film set four years after the "end" of the war to tell us this. Other than that, it's perfectly fine.
The Girl with The Dragon Tattoo (6/10)
Sadly, another case of People Should Just Read The Book. In many ways, it's a very good adaptation of Stieg Larrson's book and if you're not a big reader, you should probably see the film. There is one major problem with it, though. TGWTDT focuses on a 30 year old murder mystery. A disgraced journalist is brought in to have one last stab at it. In the book, he spends about six months getting no-where and then he has one lucky break, follows it up with a lot of *really* hard work and starts making headway with the mystery. The problem is, the film is a film. It has to move at a fairly quick pace or the audience get bored. As a result, they cut out the really hard work and just have the bits where he makes headway through luck or deductions that seem really obvious. Also, we don't really spend much time with the suspects in the case as the film (rightly) focuses on other stuff so when everything comes to a head, a character rears their ugly head and you have no idea who they are or what the significance of their role is. These are problems that were inevitable and would only have been solved if it had been made into a TV show instead. Which would have been a much better idea, sadly.
Kick Ass (3/10)
Kick Ass was boring, made little sense and had a very annoying main character. This would have been forgiveable if it was funny but far too often replaced wit with swearing. Having a little girl say Cunt is funny a couple of times but you can't stretch this to a 90 minute film.
Whip It (10/10)
I judge a film a lot based on how I feel on the walk home from the cinema. After Zombieland, I felt the need for classic rock music. After Whip it, I couldn't stop grinning. Whip It is a funny film, it's got a lot of heart, a plot that makes sense, great characters and it passes the Bechtel Test with flying colours. I recommend it to everyone. And it has maybe from Arrested Development in it.
Iron Man 2 (2/10)
Iron Man 1 was a fun action film that happened to be based on a comic book. Iron Man 2 was a comic book come to life and I don't mean that in a good way. Iron Man 2 made me realise I hate comic books with their terrible dialogue, villains with incredibly sketchy motivation, action scenes that completely defy all known laws of physics... Iron Man 2 has made me swear off all comic book films that aren't being directed by Christoper Nolan or someone similarly talented. And it has Scarlett Johansen in, which is never good. She's not the worst thing in the film, though. Which is, frankly, astonishing.
If I had to list the films wrong with it from most to least severe, I'd start with the action sequences which are on a stupidity par with those of Terminator 4. That's the early ones. The ones at the end of the film actually bored me. Like the ones in Public Enemies did. Look, I'm an action geek, ok? I love action films. Even the silly ones. Especially the silly ones. Crank? Awesome. Shoot em Up? Fantastic. An action sequence has to be really bad for me not to see any merit in it at all.
Then we've got the plot which is just one huge trailer for the Marvel Franchise Avengers thing, which I don't give a shit about and am definitely not going to see after this, thank you very much.
Then we have Scarlett Johansen.
Then everything else.
Bah.
So yeah, 2010. Much worse than 2009 so far.
And 2011 isn't looking too hot either.
I sound like a grumpy old man. I just want some good films. Is that too much to ask? For it to be like 2008 again?
/cries
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