This is why they don't make good horror movies anymore: no one goes to see them. It's been 2 months since the last horror movie and the best Drag Me to Hell can do this last weekend is $16 million? Come on! It has an A-level director with a strong foundation in the horror genre, hip, young stars, humor, a PG-13 rating so the whole family can go, and the strongest reviews of any horror movie in years. Regardless of what I thought about it, Drag Me to Hell is currently sitting at 95% positive on the review aggregate Rotten Tomatoes. The Unborn, A Haunting in Connecticut, the Friday the 13th remake, for God's sake, made more money than Drag Me to Hell on their openning weekends, and all were universally panned.
Now I realize only 3 people read this blog, but I know that those three people can each tell three more people to see this great freakin' horror movie.
I guess I can understand the state of things these days: look no further than the MTV Movie Awards which aired last night. Twilight won every award it was nominated for, not surprising since the awards in this show are voted for by the MTV public and this is the type of crap that the largest movie-going demographic wants to see. Twilight's director walked away from the sequel because she was fed up with the studio wanting to rush out another mindless product instead of taking some time to develop a higher level of quality. No care is put into these movies, they are designed to take advantage of the young and ignorant who will hand over the dough simply because the media tells them its cool. We should demand a higher standard and support all efforts made to release something creative into our theaters, not some lame-ass star-vehicle written by a five-year old. We deserve better.
Also, just saw Up. Best movie I have seen so far this year. Expect a review soon from Smokey.
Professor P
Sunday, May 31, 2009
Saturday, May 30, 2009
Movie Review: Drag Me to Hell (2009)
Drag Me to Hell (2009)
This is definitely a Sam Raimi film. The man utilizes almost every creative trick from his repertoire of horror movies and horror-comedies to entertaining and hilarious effect. It’s extremely nostalgic to watch this great director pay tribute to the styles and genres that catapulted his career to mega-director, a director who, for the last decade, has only shown us glimpses of these antics hidden within his decidedly mainstream Spiderman franchise. Drag Me to Hell features some delightfully campy dialogue and an original script by Ivan and Sam Raimi, very reminiscent of the Evil Dead movies which they also co-wrote. Other Raimi staples you will find here are some fun one-liners, the demonic-force cam, shaky cam, goo and slime of all different colors, weird sound-effects triggered by trippy camera movements, special effects by two thirds of the KNB crew, producing by long-time colleague Rob Tapert, and a larger-than-cameo performance by “The Classic,” Sam Raimi’s 40-year old yellow Oldsmobile which has appeared in every one of his films. Even with all this greatness, the presence of Mr. Bruce Campbell is sorely missed. He is, after all, a vital member of the trifecta who, along with Sam and Rob, crafted three of the most memorable cult-horror films of all time. Don’t get me wrong, Sam is incredibly talented and can make a movie like nobody else, but part of what made his great movies of old so memorable, is the self-depreciation, sarcasm, and unassuming charm of Bruce Campbell
Drag Me to Hell opens with the old Universal Studios logo: a gesture meant to portray the following picture as a throwback to the classical horror film. This is disingenuous because Drag Me to Hell, although featuring many classic Sam Raimi trademarks, is very much a modern horror movie, and includes all those elements that some of us horror film buffs have come to resent. Stuff like cell phones, computer-generated special effects, and that ominous PG-13 rating all make prominent appearances. Maybe Raimi is trying to make a point here that modern horror film elements can actually work as long as the creative forces behind them are just that: creative. Drag Me to Hell really does work, and I left the theater only a little peeved about the PG-13 rating. I suppose a couple of his older films, like Army of Darkness, probably would have received a PG-13 if released today anyway, so the rating isn’t a real crime.
One thing that did take away from this return-to-form is the CGI. Alison Lohman gets all kind of dirty, with mud, puss, saliva, and other unimaginable goo splattering her cute figure. There are, however, at least two occasions when this goo was clearly computer-generated. There is no need for this. None of the goo was so other-worldly that it had to be realized artificially. Sam never showed any remorse over beating the crap out of Bruce and soaking him with blood during long night shoots when the temperature bordered on freezing. Maybe it was a contractual thing. Maybe Lohman only agreed to have 20 litres of goo sprayed at her, anything more would have to be computer-generated.
Drag Me to Hell starts a little slow. The film develops a predictable character-exposition-followed-by-scary-things-happening formula that carries through the second act. It’s entertaining, but you will find yourself becoming a little impatient for the story to get going. When it does, though, it’s really excellent. The third act contains some terrific horror sequences and some very creative images. If you’ve seen the Evil Dead movies, there won’t be many surprises here for you, but it’s nice to see that Sam still cares.
This is a Sam Raimi movie, so expect lots of humor. There are a ton of nods to his older films, and subtle pop-culture references sprinkled here and there. What type of computer do you think the Justin Long character uses at his office? I wonder if he has an iPhone too. Alison Lohman is pretty funny throughout, although there is an awkward moment here and there when she must say a line already immortalized by Bruce. I don’t want to take anything away from Alison, because she does a great job, but once again, something was missing from the overall product that prevented it from achieving the masterpiece status.
The final verdict: It’s hard to say anything bad about this film, because it works tremendously well and it’s wonderful to see Sam Raimi take some time out for horror; Drag Me to Hell just isn’t a masterpiece of the same caliber as the Evil Dead movies. The formula is there, the creative talent behind the camera is there: the only thing missing is The Chin. Cross your fingers and hope that the long-rumored Evil Dead 4 is on the way...maybe after another three Spiderman films.
This is definitely a Sam Raimi film. The man utilizes almost every creative trick from his repertoire of horror movies and horror-comedies to entertaining and hilarious effect. It’s extremely nostalgic to watch this great director pay tribute to the styles and genres that catapulted his career to mega-director, a director who, for the last decade, has only shown us glimpses of these antics hidden within his decidedly mainstream Spiderman franchise. Drag Me to Hell features some delightfully campy dialogue and an original script by Ivan and Sam Raimi, very reminiscent of the Evil Dead movies which they also co-wrote. Other Raimi staples you will find here are some fun one-liners, the demonic-force cam, shaky cam, goo and slime of all different colors, weird sound-effects triggered by trippy camera movements, special effects by two thirds of the KNB crew, producing by long-time colleague Rob Tapert, and a larger-than-cameo performance by “The Classic,” Sam Raimi’s 40-year old yellow Oldsmobile which has appeared in every one of his films. Even with all this greatness, the presence of Mr. Bruce Campbell is sorely missed. He is, after all, a vital member of the trifecta who, along with Sam and Rob, crafted three of the most memorable cult-horror films of all time. Don’t get me wrong, Sam is incredibly talented and can make a movie like nobody else, but part of what made his great movies of old so memorable, is the self-depreciation, sarcasm, and unassuming charm of Bruce Campbell
Drag Me to Hell opens with the old Universal Studios logo: a gesture meant to portray the following picture as a throwback to the classical horror film. This is disingenuous because Drag Me to Hell, although featuring many classic Sam Raimi trademarks, is very much a modern horror movie, and includes all those elements that some of us horror film buffs have come to resent. Stuff like cell phones, computer-generated special effects, and that ominous PG-13 rating all make prominent appearances. Maybe Raimi is trying to make a point here that modern horror film elements can actually work as long as the creative forces behind them are just that: creative. Drag Me to Hell really does work, and I left the theater only a little peeved about the PG-13 rating. I suppose a couple of his older films, like Army of Darkness, probably would have received a PG-13 if released today anyway, so the rating isn’t a real crime.
One thing that did take away from this return-to-form is the CGI. Alison Lohman gets all kind of dirty, with mud, puss, saliva, and other unimaginable goo splattering her cute figure. There are, however, at least two occasions when this goo was clearly computer-generated. There is no need for this. None of the goo was so other-worldly that it had to be realized artificially. Sam never showed any remorse over beating the crap out of Bruce and soaking him with blood during long night shoots when the temperature bordered on freezing. Maybe it was a contractual thing. Maybe Lohman only agreed to have 20 litres of goo sprayed at her, anything more would have to be computer-generated.
Drag Me to Hell starts a little slow. The film develops a predictable character-exposition-followed-by-scary-things-happening formula that carries through the second act. It’s entertaining, but you will find yourself becoming a little impatient for the story to get going. When it does, though, it’s really excellent. The third act contains some terrific horror sequences and some very creative images. If you’ve seen the Evil Dead movies, there won’t be many surprises here for you, but it’s nice to see that Sam still cares.
This is a Sam Raimi movie, so expect lots of humor. There are a ton of nods to his older films, and subtle pop-culture references sprinkled here and there. What type of computer do you think the Justin Long character uses at his office? I wonder if he has an iPhone too. Alison Lohman is pretty funny throughout, although there is an awkward moment here and there when she must say a line already immortalized by Bruce. I don’t want to take anything away from Alison, because she does a great job, but once again, something was missing from the overall product that prevented it from achieving the masterpiece status.
The final verdict: It’s hard to say anything bad about this film, because it works tremendously well and it’s wonderful to see Sam Raimi take some time out for horror; Drag Me to Hell just isn’t a masterpiece of the same caliber as the Evil Dead movies. The formula is there, the creative talent behind the camera is there: the only thing missing is The Chin. Cross your fingers and hope that the long-rumored Evil Dead 4 is on the way...maybe after another three Spiderman films.
Professor P
Friday, May 29, 2009
Things I’ve learned while working on a big budget Hollywood film set
So it has been quite a while since my first addition to this blog some weeks ago. Fear not, because I have articles on the way, but non are at a level I'm happy with yet. I am trying to maintain, what by others has been deemed a high quality level of writing, and as such it takes me much longer to get anything done. In loo of a larger article I’ve decided to include something small but hopefully just as interesting.
I was given my first chance, this week, to work on a legitimate big budget film. This is by far not my first time on a set; however, it is my first time working as a actual contributing crew member (not a PA either). It was only one day, which lasted just 12 hours, but I still got to see lots and learn even more.
The following is a set of things that I learned and I thought you might find interesting as well.
1 ~At meal times crew eat before cast.
This sounds great if you’re a crewmember. On union gigs lunch is typically 6 hours after morning call so the sooner you get to eat the better. But what is the reason for this? Perhaps it is a tradition that has formed over the years to give some sort of thanks to the crew for working hard. Typically the crew have start times that are way earlier then cast and will wrap at the end of the day much later as well. While the cast hang around talking/eating/waiting for the next scene the crew is trying to get everything ready so that the cast can do their thing for 20 minutes.
You would think that this would all be a good reason to let the crew eat first, but in actuality the real reason is that the crew often have to return to work after the lunch break much sooner then the cast. (By the way, I’m not complaining about this, after all it is just a fact of the film industry. I just thought it was interesting)
2 ~ Never make eye contact with an actor during a take.
Apparently, making eye contact with an actor while filming can cause them to screw up and ruin a take. Evidently, with some actors you do not want to be the one who screws them up because you will have the wrath of god brought down upon you.
As such, all low and mid-level crew must make sure they are out of eye-line for the actors and must avert their eyes while the cameras are rolling.
3 ~ Money is of no consequence
Building a $100,000 custom, fully functioning set that will appear through the window of an equally expensive custom built set for exactly one shot is no big deal.
Having hundreds of crewmembers (of which it is pretty obvious most don’t need to be there most of the time) appears to be of no financial consequent to the production either.
However….
4 ~ Money is of major consequence (…when you screw up or delay a take)
On the flip side of number 3, making a mistake as a low or mid-level crewmember that delays or completely ruins a take is a very big deal and can result in screaming, yelling, carrying on and other behaviour that is usually reserved for a two year old or a moody teenager.
(Thankfully, I didn't have to learn this one the hard way)
5 ~ (Usually, on big budget productions) craft services (and all food in general) is great.
Ok. This one is obvious and self-explanatory, but I thought it needed to be mentioned anyway.
So that is it for now. Hopefully I’ll have more for you later on.
I was given my first chance, this week, to work on a legitimate big budget film. This is by far not my first time on a set; however, it is my first time working as a actual contributing crew member (not a PA either). It was only one day, which lasted just 12 hours, but I still got to see lots and learn even more.
The following is a set of things that I learned and I thought you might find interesting as well.
1 ~At meal times crew eat before cast.
This sounds great if you’re a crewmember. On union gigs lunch is typically 6 hours after morning call so the sooner you get to eat the better. But what is the reason for this? Perhaps it is a tradition that has formed over the years to give some sort of thanks to the crew for working hard. Typically the crew have start times that are way earlier then cast and will wrap at the end of the day much later as well. While the cast hang around talking/eating/waiting for the next scene the crew is trying to get everything ready so that the cast can do their thing for 20 minutes.
You would think that this would all be a good reason to let the crew eat first, but in actuality the real reason is that the crew often have to return to work after the lunch break much sooner then the cast. (By the way, I’m not complaining about this, after all it is just a fact of the film industry. I just thought it was interesting)
2 ~ Never make eye contact with an actor during a take.
Apparently, making eye contact with an actor while filming can cause them to screw up and ruin a take. Evidently, with some actors you do not want to be the one who screws them up because you will have the wrath of god brought down upon you.
As such, all low and mid-level crew must make sure they are out of eye-line for the actors and must avert their eyes while the cameras are rolling.
3 ~ Money is of no consequence
Building a $100,000 custom, fully functioning set that will appear through the window of an equally expensive custom built set for exactly one shot is no big deal.
Having hundreds of crewmembers (of which it is pretty obvious most don’t need to be there most of the time) appears to be of no financial consequent to the production either.
However….
4 ~ Money is of major consequence (…when you screw up or delay a take)
On the flip side of number 3, making a mistake as a low or mid-level crewmember that delays or completely ruins a take is a very big deal and can result in screaming, yelling, carrying on and other behaviour that is usually reserved for a two year old or a moody teenager.
(Thankfully, I didn't have to learn this one the hard way)
5 ~ (Usually, on big budget productions) craft services (and all food in general) is great.
Ok. This one is obvious and self-explanatory, but I thought it needed to be mentioned anyway.
So that is it for now. Hopefully I’ll have more for you later on.
Thursday, May 28, 2009
Top Video Games (With a Heavy Emphasis on Story) #5
5. The Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time (1998) – N64
What can be said about this definitive Zelda game that hasn’t been said before? It is, through and through, a masterpiece. For a franchise that holds the torch of quality, Ocarina of Time still burns the brightest, and I doubt we will ever see it abdicated any time soon.
So what makes it great? Ocarina of Time tells one of the most beautiful fantasy stories that the genre has ever known, about a boy born in the Kokiri Forest who is a little different. The population suffers from stunted growth, they fully mature as children, and they are all blessed with a fairy guide to protect them from the forest’s many dangers. Link was born without a guide and, as we will soon learn, he will become a heroic adult.
The story begins as darkness is spreading across the land, although the Kokiri are relatively sheltered, but eventually the plights of the world can no longer be ignored and Link sets off to right some wrongs and restore some peace. You visit a withering old tree who tells you the history of Hyrule, how the three spirits descended upon a barren rock and gave it life, magic, and law. You visit a colony of irritable rock eaters who live in a volcano and are enslaved by demonic forces. After rescuing them you travel to the most beautiful corner of Hyrule: Zora’s Domain. This is the land of water-dwelling fish people who live in and around breathtaking crystalline caverns, lakes, and waterfalls. And yes, you rescue their missing princess from the guts of a cursed giant fish.
There is no end to the creativity that overwhelms every step of your journey. These opening challenges are time-consuming and satisfying, but you will soon learn that this is only the beginning. Link is still too young and too weak to defeat Ganondorf, so he must be safeguarded in the timestream for seven years, only to emerge as the fully grown Hero of Time. This is when the game really opens up. Not only do you explore this sick and dying land as an adult, but many challenges will force you to travel back in time to remedy an impediment that prevents your progress in the present. It’s a wonderful dynamic that really forces you to consider the consequences of your past actions as everything is atoned for in the future.
The ending to Ocarina of Time is also very beautiful. It emphasizes the importance of destiny and sacrifice, over more personal themes such as love and friendship. Link and Zelda never seem destined to be together, but, as the final frames show us, the two young adventurers will forever be linked together by the power of fate.
What can be said about this definitive Zelda game that hasn’t been said before? It is, through and through, a masterpiece. For a franchise that holds the torch of quality, Ocarina of Time still burns the brightest, and I doubt we will ever see it abdicated any time soon.
So what makes it great? Ocarina of Time tells one of the most beautiful fantasy stories that the genre has ever known, about a boy born in the Kokiri Forest who is a little different. The population suffers from stunted growth, they fully mature as children, and they are all blessed with a fairy guide to protect them from the forest’s many dangers. Link was born without a guide and, as we will soon learn, he will become a heroic adult.
The story begins as darkness is spreading across the land, although the Kokiri are relatively sheltered, but eventually the plights of the world can no longer be ignored and Link sets off to right some wrongs and restore some peace. You visit a withering old tree who tells you the history of Hyrule, how the three spirits descended upon a barren rock and gave it life, magic, and law. You visit a colony of irritable rock eaters who live in a volcano and are enslaved by demonic forces. After rescuing them you travel to the most beautiful corner of Hyrule: Zora’s Domain. This is the land of water-dwelling fish people who live in and around breathtaking crystalline caverns, lakes, and waterfalls. And yes, you rescue their missing princess from the guts of a cursed giant fish.
There is no end to the creativity that overwhelms every step of your journey. These opening challenges are time-consuming and satisfying, but you will soon learn that this is only the beginning. Link is still too young and too weak to defeat Ganondorf, so he must be safeguarded in the timestream for seven years, only to emerge as the fully grown Hero of Time. This is when the game really opens up. Not only do you explore this sick and dying land as an adult, but many challenges will force you to travel back in time to remedy an impediment that prevents your progress in the present. It’s a wonderful dynamic that really forces you to consider the consequences of your past actions as everything is atoned for in the future.
The ending to Ocarina of Time is also very beautiful. It emphasizes the importance of destiny and sacrifice, over more personal themes such as love and friendship. Link and Zelda never seem destined to be together, but, as the final frames show us, the two young adventurers will forever be linked together by the power of fate.
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Top Video Games (With a Heavy Emphasis on Story) #6
6. Star Wars: Dark Forces II: Jedi Knight (1997) – PC
Star Wars: Dark Forces II: Jedi Knight is one of the very first PC games I ever played, and certainly the first first-person shooter. What really struck me about the experience is the killer live-action cutscenes that play between levels. For a videogame, the production values are very high, complete with computer-generated imagery, lightsaber action, film-quality make-up, detailed props and sets, and serviceable acting. I love the actor who plays Kyle Katarn, the mercenary-for-hire who has uncovered cryptic messages left for him by his deceased father. It turns out, as luck would have it, that Kyle is destined to become a Jedi. It’s a good thing he has cleaned up and ceased taking Imperial jobs: Kyle is working for the good guys now.
Just because Kyle begins his journey as a naïve, Imperial-killing badass, that doesn’t mean he won’t be tempted by the Dark side. One of the great dynamics within Jedi Knight is that Kyle’s actions have consequences on his Force status. If you protect civilians and utilize positive Force powers, you will be a dedicated Jedi, but if you use Dark powers and kill innocents, you can become a Sith. The system also allows you to fall somewhere in between, which is perfect because as good-natured as I am, it is a lot to ask me to give up Force Lightning, or Choke. There is a point in the game where you must answer for you previous actions, and from this point forward, your journey can go down two very distinct paths. I highly recommend taking the Light Force route, simply because the final chapters offer more cutscenes and a more developed story for the light side.
Jedi Knight is also the first game, to my knowledge, to feature lightsaber duels in three dimensions. I actually recommend switching to the third-person perspective for battles: it’s just easier to see what’s going on. Battles are challenging, and intense. You will fight as many as seven Dark Jedi villains throughout the story, and they all have unique characteristics and fighting styles. The game is a shooter, though, and there is a substantial arsenal of futuristic weapons, many taken from the movies, at your disposal.
Kyle Katarn turned out to be one of the most popular non-canonical characters to come out of post-movie media. He spawned many more game sequels, a comic book series, and has his own series of novels set within the Star Wars Universe. I have not read any of these and suspect they are of dubious quality, but the point is that Katarn is a bankable personality, and it was not until the release of this Dark Forces sequel that Kyle Katarn was fully realized as the cantankerous mercenary with a heart of gold who just happens to be a Jedi.
Star Wars: Dark Forces II: Jedi Knight is one of the very first PC games I ever played, and certainly the first first-person shooter. What really struck me about the experience is the killer live-action cutscenes that play between levels. For a videogame, the production values are very high, complete with computer-generated imagery, lightsaber action, film-quality make-up, detailed props and sets, and serviceable acting. I love the actor who plays Kyle Katarn, the mercenary-for-hire who has uncovered cryptic messages left for him by his deceased father. It turns out, as luck would have it, that Kyle is destined to become a Jedi. It’s a good thing he has cleaned up and ceased taking Imperial jobs: Kyle is working for the good guys now.
Just because Kyle begins his journey as a naïve, Imperial-killing badass, that doesn’t mean he won’t be tempted by the Dark side. One of the great dynamics within Jedi Knight is that Kyle’s actions have consequences on his Force status. If you protect civilians and utilize positive Force powers, you will be a dedicated Jedi, but if you use Dark powers and kill innocents, you can become a Sith. The system also allows you to fall somewhere in between, which is perfect because as good-natured as I am, it is a lot to ask me to give up Force Lightning, or Choke. There is a point in the game where you must answer for you previous actions, and from this point forward, your journey can go down two very distinct paths. I highly recommend taking the Light Force route, simply because the final chapters offer more cutscenes and a more developed story for the light side.
Jedi Knight is also the first game, to my knowledge, to feature lightsaber duels in three dimensions. I actually recommend switching to the third-person perspective for battles: it’s just easier to see what’s going on. Battles are challenging, and intense. You will fight as many as seven Dark Jedi villains throughout the story, and they all have unique characteristics and fighting styles. The game is a shooter, though, and there is a substantial arsenal of futuristic weapons, many taken from the movies, at your disposal.
Kyle Katarn turned out to be one of the most popular non-canonical characters to come out of post-movie media. He spawned many more game sequels, a comic book series, and has his own series of novels set within the Star Wars Universe. I have not read any of these and suspect they are of dubious quality, but the point is that Katarn is a bankable personality, and it was not until the release of this Dark Forces sequel that Kyle Katarn was fully realized as the cantankerous mercenary with a heart of gold who just happens to be a Jedi.
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
Top Video Games (With a Heavy Emphasis on Story) #7
7. Final Fantasy VIII (1999) – PC
There is something about investing 40 hours of time getting to know some beautifully realized characters and their lives that leads itself to absurd levels of emotional attachment given the medium within which the characters exist. I am the first to admit, however, that I really like the population of Final Fantasy VIII
As a game, Final Fantasy VIII is not perfect. The story starts off slow, and the draw system is a bitch. To use magic, each character must draw the spell of choice from a certain enemy that carries the desired spell, and stockpile it like an item. Each time you use magic, you use up one of your stockpiled magics. Also, you can junction specific magics to certain character attributes, boosting their effect, but this practice is ineffective unless you have stockpiled a substantial number of the applied magic (you can carry up to 100 of each). So, between drawing magic for offensive use and drawing magic for attribute juctioning, it all adds up to a lot of time-consuming collection. This takes away from an otherwise fun combat system. Another gripe is the excessively long summon animations. They are gorgeous and tremendously satisfying…the first 20 times. Thankfully, there is an option to turn on abridged summon animations.
I make it sound like this game sucked. Ah, but you forget that this list has a heavy emphasis on story, and this is where Final Fantasy VIII really shines. This game is all character development. Every key player is fully fleshed out and tested. You play as Squall, a too-cool-for-school SeeD student at Balamb Garden: an elite military training school. The game opens with one of the coolest introductions I have ever seen. It’s a 5-minute CG montage backed by Nobuo Uematsu’s triumphant Liberi Fatali. The introduction serves to illustrate one of the game’s foremost character dynamics, the rivalry between Squall and fellow bad-boy student Seifer. This is one of my favorite relationships of the game. What begins as violent antagonism, eventually builds to mutual respect, not cliché friendship like one might expect.
The other great relationship is with Rinoa; Final Fantasy VIII is, after all, a love story. The romance really does work and never feels too girly. Squall takes most of the game to warm to Rinoa’s charms, but he is just so used to being alone that it takes a series of critical events to warm him up. This leads to the performance of one of the series’ most iconic songs: Eyes on Me. Chinese pop star Faye Wong was reportedly paid 1 million dollars to record this song, and she insisted that there be only one take. Yikes. Thankfully it turned out really nice, in a sappy J-pop kind of way.
The ending is really moving, featuring one of the longest CG cutscenes in the franchise. Every character gets a final moment, and the most sentimental ones come from some of the side players. Laguna’s final revelation, as he stands by the grave of the woman he left behind, is profoundly heart-breaking. I loved every second of Final Fantasy VIII, and if you can get past the tedious draw system, a marvelous journey can be had.
There is something about investing 40 hours of time getting to know some beautifully realized characters and their lives that leads itself to absurd levels of emotional attachment given the medium within which the characters exist. I am the first to admit, however, that I really like the population of Final Fantasy VIII
As a game, Final Fantasy VIII is not perfect. The story starts off slow, and the draw system is a bitch. To use magic, each character must draw the spell of choice from a certain enemy that carries the desired spell, and stockpile it like an item. Each time you use magic, you use up one of your stockpiled magics. Also, you can junction specific magics to certain character attributes, boosting their effect, but this practice is ineffective unless you have stockpiled a substantial number of the applied magic (you can carry up to 100 of each). So, between drawing magic for offensive use and drawing magic for attribute juctioning, it all adds up to a lot of time-consuming collection. This takes away from an otherwise fun combat system. Another gripe is the excessively long summon animations. They are gorgeous and tremendously satisfying…the first 20 times. Thankfully, there is an option to turn on abridged summon animations.
I make it sound like this game sucked. Ah, but you forget that this list has a heavy emphasis on story, and this is where Final Fantasy VIII really shines. This game is all character development. Every key player is fully fleshed out and tested. You play as Squall, a too-cool-for-school SeeD student at Balamb Garden: an elite military training school. The game opens with one of the coolest introductions I have ever seen. It’s a 5-minute CG montage backed by Nobuo Uematsu’s triumphant Liberi Fatali. The introduction serves to illustrate one of the game’s foremost character dynamics, the rivalry between Squall and fellow bad-boy student Seifer. This is one of my favorite relationships of the game. What begins as violent antagonism, eventually builds to mutual respect, not cliché friendship like one might expect.
The other great relationship is with Rinoa; Final Fantasy VIII is, after all, a love story. The romance really does work and never feels too girly. Squall takes most of the game to warm to Rinoa’s charms, but he is just so used to being alone that it takes a series of critical events to warm him up. This leads to the performance of one of the series’ most iconic songs: Eyes on Me. Chinese pop star Faye Wong was reportedly paid 1 million dollars to record this song, and she insisted that there be only one take. Yikes. Thankfully it turned out really nice, in a sappy J-pop kind of way.
The ending is really moving, featuring one of the longest CG cutscenes in the franchise. Every character gets a final moment, and the most sentimental ones come from some of the side players. Laguna’s final revelation, as he stands by the grave of the woman he left behind, is profoundly heart-breaking. I loved every second of Final Fantasy VIII, and if you can get past the tedious draw system, a marvelous journey can be had.
Monday, May 25, 2009
Movie Review: Angels & Demons (2009)
Angels & Demons (2009)
When it comes to Dan Brown, you either love or love to hate him. Yes it’s true that his work is far from literature, but it’s so damn enjoyable; he’s like the Bruckheimer of his medium, and we all know how lucrative guilty pleasures can be, especially with a good dose of controversy. Even if Brown can’t get a break, any ridiculous CNN fodder is good business. Therefore, it should surprise no one that anything attached to his work will breed controversy, slander, poor reviews, and general disgust, but it will also probably make a cathedral’s worth of money. Such is the atmosphere surrounding Angels & Demons (2009), a film that, stripped of this environment, is actually quite a good movie (but most people won’t admit it).
When it comes to Dan Brown, you either love or love to hate him. Yes it’s true that his work is far from literature, but it’s so damn enjoyable; he’s like the Bruckheimer of his medium, and we all know how lucrative guilty pleasures can be, especially with a good dose of controversy. Even if Brown can’t get a break, any ridiculous CNN fodder is good business. Therefore, it should surprise no one that anything attached to his work will breed controversy, slander, poor reviews, and general disgust, but it will also probably make a cathedral’s worth of money. Such is the atmosphere surrounding Angels & Demons (2009), a film that, stripped of this environment, is actually quite a good movie (but most people won’t admit it).
Of course none of us would be talking about Dan Brown if it wasn’t for The Da Vinci Code (2003), a true commercial juggernaut and cultural phenomenon. One could argue about the exact reasons for the novel’s success, but there’s no denying that its themes of lies and deception within religion and government struck a chord with the post-9/11 zeitgeist. The funny thing, however, is that The Da Vinci Code is actually Brown’s latest novel (not yet counting the upcoming The Lost Symbol (2009)), and its success revived interest in his earlier works, one of those being Angels & Demons (2000). Because both novels feature the same main character, Harvard symbologist Dr. Robert Langdon, Angels & Demons actually serves as a prequel to the DaVinic Code. Therefore, there was no real hullabaloo during the initial publishing of Angels & Demons, but that has all changed with the franchise’s transition to the silver screen. Given the shear success of the novel, it’s no surprise that The Da Vinci Code (2006) was the first film to roll out. Helmed by Ron Howard and starring Tom Hanks as Dr. Langdon, The Da Vinci Code proved to be an immense cash machine while being almost universally panned by critics, which is sort of controversial in its own way and only fueled the spectacle. It’s usually a rule of thumb that the sources material will be superior to the movie, but in the case of The Da Vinci Code, the general consensus was excretion on film. Now while I may be one of the few who casually enjoyed that film, it was riddled with flaws. But I will refrain from going into that now; the point is that Angels & Demons was going to drop into treacherous waters no matter what, as ridiculous as that is.
In my opinion, Angels & Demons is the better novel, and the same goes for the movie. Both Howard and Hanks return, and they certainly learned a lot from their last go around. Besides addressing Langdon’s hair style issue, the narrative has been streamlined, the dialogue has been trimmed, and the action has been fine-tuned. Even if the somber ambiance from its predecessor remains (which is really unavoidable when dealing with religion in religious locations), Angels & Demons is leaner and more exciting than The Da Vinci Code. As entertaining as the novel is, to translate it to film verbatim would mean more of a Nicholas Cage flick (and two National Treasure movies are enough thank you very much). Fortunately, all the right choices were made when trimming the real cheese, making the story as realistic as possible while staying true to Langdon’s hunt for the Catholic terrorizing Illuminati in Rome during the aftermath of the Pope’s death (but that’s all I should really say). While Hanks may have seemed like a dubious choice for Langdon before, he certainly proves his worth now, and Ayelet Zurer is perfect in the role of Vittoria Vetra. In addition, strong performances are given by Ewan McGregor and Stellan Skarsgård, yet another improvent. If the movie’s critics had actually read the book and refrained from smoking crack, they would realize that this is a smart adaptation. Howard has forged a film that builds upon atmospheric suspense, utilizing the mammoth architecture as a menacing force, offering rich visual textures that both augment the story and enhance the experience when the action arrives. It’s a film not dissimilar to Chris Carter’s criminally underrated and misunderstood The X Files: I Want to Believe (2008), one where patience is rewarded.
Viewers need to remember that Howard is at the wheel, not Jon Turteltaub, and that this is a film crafted by pros and starring pros. To lump this film in with the usual action blockbuster fair is a mistake, and those who do will be disappointed, just like they were the last time. Of course it’s not a perfect film, but it certainly is one of the more original and interesting mainstream movies of the season, and it has already proven to grab the world’s attention and curiosity. The way I see it is that no matter what, Dan Brown makes money, so you might as well just stop kidding yourself, step off your righteous pedestal, and watch the movie, you just might enjoy it, especially if you’re still hurting from X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009) or even still the last Indiana Jones “Dances with Aliens” movie; come on people, you know you’ve done worse!
3.5/5
S. McSmoke-Smoke
Sunday, May 24, 2009
Top Video Games (With a Heavy Emphasis on Story) #8
8. System Shock 2 (1999) – PC
You awake on a derelict spacecraft, seemingly alone, with cybernetic implants on your face. Your memory is gone. You don’t know where you are or what you are supposed to do. Then BOOM, the ship begins to lose air pressure and you must run for your life.
System Shock 2 was the first game to truly scare the shit out of me. It’s one of those games that constantly wins those best games that no one played prizes. It came out at the same time as the original Half-Life, and had a slightly deeper interface which may have limited its accessibility. For those who found System Shock 2, however, a truly gripping and terrifying experience awaited.
You spend the majority of the game trying to figure out what happened to you and the ship you now find yourself on. The game is a first-person shooter, but it does add minimal RPG elements to liven things up. There is a handy inventory system, weapons degrade, everything is upgradeable, and the game opens with a training mission that allows you to customize your character’s attributes. There are 3 main classes to play with: you can be a soldier, specializing in weapons and combat, an engineer, with a knack for disabling alarms and hacking computer terminals, or you can acquire psionic powers, such as telepathy or manipulation of electricity. This allows you to play the game however you want, or to combine the attributes in creative ways.
The Von Braun is the haunted house of spacecrafts. You see the ghosts of dead crew members, a side-effect of your cybernetic implants, and you can retrieve audio logs of the crew members which help you to piece together the mystery. You are, however, not entirely alone on the Von Braun. Dr Janice Polito is trapped on deck 4, and is communicating with you via headset, guiding you through the enormous ship on your way to meet her and escape. Then there are The Many. There has been an outbreak of the infectious- genetic variety on board, causing all surviving crew members to become grossly mutated killing machines. They appear to have a hive-mindset, communicating with each other telepathically. What really creeps me out are some of the words they speak as you carefully approach their location. They will moan, “You’re song is not ours”, or “Is there another?” saturated with painful agony. Their calls don’t quite make sense, but have profoundly disturbing implications.
System Shock 2 also has one of the greatest shock-twists in videogames. Those who have played this game’s spiritual successor, Bioshock, can probably guess what it is, or vice versa. The final revelation is also pretty horrifying, for it alludes to some dark and dire circumstances, seemingly insurmountable. But don’t give up. Some of the best moments await when you finally leave the Von Braun to explore some pretty crazy locations in the last act.
You awake on a derelict spacecraft, seemingly alone, with cybernetic implants on your face. Your memory is gone. You don’t know where you are or what you are supposed to do. Then BOOM, the ship begins to lose air pressure and you must run for your life.
System Shock 2 was the first game to truly scare the shit out of me. It’s one of those games that constantly wins those best games that no one played prizes. It came out at the same time as the original Half-Life, and had a slightly deeper interface which may have limited its accessibility. For those who found System Shock 2, however, a truly gripping and terrifying experience awaited.
You spend the majority of the game trying to figure out what happened to you and the ship you now find yourself on. The game is a first-person shooter, but it does add minimal RPG elements to liven things up. There is a handy inventory system, weapons degrade, everything is upgradeable, and the game opens with a training mission that allows you to customize your character’s attributes. There are 3 main classes to play with: you can be a soldier, specializing in weapons and combat, an engineer, with a knack for disabling alarms and hacking computer terminals, or you can acquire psionic powers, such as telepathy or manipulation of electricity. This allows you to play the game however you want, or to combine the attributes in creative ways.
The Von Braun is the haunted house of spacecrafts. You see the ghosts of dead crew members, a side-effect of your cybernetic implants, and you can retrieve audio logs of the crew members which help you to piece together the mystery. You are, however, not entirely alone on the Von Braun. Dr Janice Polito is trapped on deck 4, and is communicating with you via headset, guiding you through the enormous ship on your way to meet her and escape. Then there are The Many. There has been an outbreak of the infectious- genetic variety on board, causing all surviving crew members to become grossly mutated killing machines. They appear to have a hive-mindset, communicating with each other telepathically. What really creeps me out are some of the words they speak as you carefully approach their location. They will moan, “You’re song is not ours”, or “Is there another?” saturated with painful agony. Their calls don’t quite make sense, but have profoundly disturbing implications.
System Shock 2 also has one of the greatest shock-twists in videogames. Those who have played this game’s spiritual successor, Bioshock, can probably guess what it is, or vice versa. The final revelation is also pretty horrifying, for it alludes to some dark and dire circumstances, seemingly insurmountable. But don’t give up. Some of the best moments await when you finally leave the Von Braun to explore some pretty crazy locations in the last act.
Friday, May 22, 2009
Movie Review: Punisher: Warzone (2008)
Punisher: Warzone (2008)
Okay, so it's not a masterpiece. But it didn't deserve the box office disappointment that crushed any hopes of a franchise. It's too bad, though, because the filmmakers got so much of Frank Castle's world right, that I would have loved to see this version continue. Warzone is a much stronger Punisher movie than either of its two predecessors, and filmmakers finally cast a leading man who wasn't blond and actually looked the part. Apologies to both Dolph Lungren and Thomas Jane, but your Punisher movies were much worse than this. At least Warzone had balls. And what pissed me off the most is that Max Payne (2008), a similarly-themed vigilante flick, made a shitload of money, and it was brutally awful. I turned it off. It was even more unwatchable due to it being a neutered PG-13 version of a videogame that received a hard mature rating. I mean, if you are going to make a redundant Death Wish knockoff, you could at least make it violent; then, maybe, there would be some reason for me to watch it.
Let's start with what worked. Two things: Ray Stevenson and the violence. Did I mention Ray Stevenson? The man was born for this role, he looks like he was torn right from Tim Bradstreet's cover pages for Garth Ennis' most recent run on Frank Castle. And, much like the Thomas Jane Punisher (2004) movie, the best parts of Warzone are the ones that adhere the closest to the books.
The violence is just right. It is totally excessive, but that is exactly what The Punisher is all about. There is also some really great acting. Doug Hutchison steals the show here, as he does in Lost or anything else he appears in, as Loony Bin Jim. Every moment of Jim's screentime is thouroughly entertaining, and Hutchison clearly knows what kind of film he is in. Dominic West, as Jigsaw, also has a good time. It's very funny watching an Englishman play an American with a thick New Jersey accent. He hams it up to the extreme and is a pleasure to watch. Julie Benz, who I enjoy in my favorite television series, Dexter, is not given much to do here, but she does her thing well.
The bottom line is that nobody writes The Punisher like Garth Ennis. His 8 year run on the character is the most successful and endearing run in the history of Frank Castle. For the first few years, Ennis wrote the books in the style of black comedy, with cartoony but graphic violence, and still within the constraints of the Marvel Universe. The character really became interesting, however, when Ennis moved his books onto Marvel's Max line: a series geared solely toward adults. In this format, profanity is no longer censored, the violence is more realistic and more extreme, and the themes are much darker and much heavier. Some stories grossed even me out. Ennis had a great real-world vigilante in his hands here, who traveled outside the Marvel Universe, to Russia and Afghanistan, and dealt with global politics and wars. The humor is not entirely absent from the Max series, but there is a singular focus on exploring the darker side of Frank's world.
Punisher: Warzone's biggest failure is that it tries to meld these two versions of Frank together, and it doesn't quite work. The sets look fantastic, following the comic book-style of using 3 main colors to light each scene. Sure it feels a little too close to Batman and Robin (1997) at times, but the darker tones and constant violence frequently assures us that this is not a Schumacher film. The dialogue hovers somewhere between serviceable, camp, and just plain awful. The acting is weak in parts only because some characters are grossly underdeveloped. I liked Dash Mihok, who played Martin Soap, but his character was underused. Soap is even more hilariously pathetic in the comic, and I would have preferred to see him team up with the lesbian detective from Welcome Back Frank, the 12-issue series that instigated Garth Ennis' Punisher run. That would have provided a much more interesting dynamic than the cinematic partnering of Soap with FBI agent Paul Budiansky.
There is no real story to Punisher: Warzone, which is a huge disappointment given the wealth of material available for adaptation. Any of Ennis's story-arcs would have sufficed, and delivered a much stronger product than what we are left with. Ray Stevenson said they were looking at a couple of Ennis's stories for the sequel, but it looks like the sequel will probably never happen. Oh well, what's another decade? My sincerest hope is that when they try again ten years from now, they use Ray Stevenson again. Sure he'll be in his fifties, but that is okay. Ennis' Punisher is at least in his fifties, and is even more of a badass for it.
The final verdict: filmmakers should have had Garth Ennis write the script. Comic book writers, after all, write a script for their comic in much the same way that screenwriters do for a film. Filmmakers could have at least had Ennis look over the screenplay and tweak the dialogue, as it is obvious the screenwriters didn't know what they were doing: Frank didn't utter a word until the 28 minute mark. But perhaps this is for the best. Punisher: Warzone is strongest when the talking ends and the action begins. Screw Max Payne, see Punisher: Warzone instead. It has balls.
Professor Puff
Top Video Games (With a Heavy Emphasis on Story) #9
9. Half-Life 2 (2004) – PC
There is very little I can say about this game that hasn’t been said before. It is every bit the groundbreaking, innovative masterpiece that it is recognized as. It is a smart first-person shooter, incorporating hair-tugging puzzles that utilize the game’s rich physics engine. And then there is the gravity gun: the classic device that can pull any number of light- to medium-weight inorganic objects toward the user, and then blast them in a targeted direction with damaging speed.
The journey through Half-Life 2’s world is meticulous and diverse. You will trek the fictional dystopia, City 17, with all its nods to George Orwell and Big Brother. The best chapter in the game follows your acquisition of a boat, which you use to travel canals leading to a rebel hideout. The sequence lasts for hours and involves many high-speed chases, ramped jumps, and getaways, and it also has some more somber, exploratory sections which require you to leave the vehicle briefly to remove an obstruction or open a gate. It is during this chapter that I encountered the first physics puzzle to ever make my jaw drop. You, and your boat, arrive at a floating platform that spans a waterway and dead-end wall. It took me awhile to figure it out, but there are hollow barrels in the area that float and exhibit realistic buoyancy. These must be taken underwater and manipulated under the platform to raise it as a ramp. The brilliance of this, and the game’s later puzzles, is that the physics technology has now advanced to the point that in-game puzzles don’t feel contrived or observable; instead you are forced to utilize elements in the natural environment in natural ways. Other Half-Life 2 location highlights include the terrifying Ravenholm (a sequence that is preceded by the ominous horror-movie warning: “We don’t go to Ravenholm anymore.”), and an Antlion-infested beach.
I should also mention that Half-Life 2 has been proceeded by two excellent episodes, which continue the story of Gordon Freeman’s rebellion against the Combine and alien forces. Many more mysteries await us in the forthcoming third and concluding episode. The best add-on to the game, however, is the first-person puzzler, Portal. It is insanely fun and very challenging. You use a portal gun to traverse your way through traps and cryptic environments, and the puzzles require prospective three-dimensional planning and physical logic. Just when you think you’re done, there’s a surprise. Enjoy your cake. Also, although Portal may seem entirely unrelated to the main Half-Life 2 storyline, look for a mysterious cameo at the end of Episode 2.
The game took 5 years to develop, at a cost of $40 million. In the 21st century, games are costing as much, and are more profitable than, movies. It is nice to see care and intelligence go into a project that could just as easily been produced as a cash-cow, along the same lines as the Saw movies that are rushed out every year by Halloween. Half-Life 2 is a Dark Knight among Wolverines.
There is very little I can say about this game that hasn’t been said before. It is every bit the groundbreaking, innovative masterpiece that it is recognized as. It is a smart first-person shooter, incorporating hair-tugging puzzles that utilize the game’s rich physics engine. And then there is the gravity gun: the classic device that can pull any number of light- to medium-weight inorganic objects toward the user, and then blast them in a targeted direction with damaging speed.
The journey through Half-Life 2’s world is meticulous and diverse. You will trek the fictional dystopia, City 17, with all its nods to George Orwell and Big Brother. The best chapter in the game follows your acquisition of a boat, which you use to travel canals leading to a rebel hideout. The sequence lasts for hours and involves many high-speed chases, ramped jumps, and getaways, and it also has some more somber, exploratory sections which require you to leave the vehicle briefly to remove an obstruction or open a gate. It is during this chapter that I encountered the first physics puzzle to ever make my jaw drop. You, and your boat, arrive at a floating platform that spans a waterway and dead-end wall. It took me awhile to figure it out, but there are hollow barrels in the area that float and exhibit realistic buoyancy. These must be taken underwater and manipulated under the platform to raise it as a ramp. The brilliance of this, and the game’s later puzzles, is that the physics technology has now advanced to the point that in-game puzzles don’t feel contrived or observable; instead you are forced to utilize elements in the natural environment in natural ways. Other Half-Life 2 location highlights include the terrifying Ravenholm (a sequence that is preceded by the ominous horror-movie warning: “We don’t go to Ravenholm anymore.”), and an Antlion-infested beach.
I should also mention that Half-Life 2 has been proceeded by two excellent episodes, which continue the story of Gordon Freeman’s rebellion against the Combine and alien forces. Many more mysteries await us in the forthcoming third and concluding episode. The best add-on to the game, however, is the first-person puzzler, Portal. It is insanely fun and very challenging. You use a portal gun to traverse your way through traps and cryptic environments, and the puzzles require prospective three-dimensional planning and physical logic. Just when you think you’re done, there’s a surprise. Enjoy your cake. Also, although Portal may seem entirely unrelated to the main Half-Life 2 storyline, look for a mysterious cameo at the end of Episode 2.
The game took 5 years to develop, at a cost of $40 million. In the 21st century, games are costing as much, and are more profitable than, movies. It is nice to see care and intelligence go into a project that could just as easily been produced as a cash-cow, along the same lines as the Saw movies that are rushed out every year by Halloween. Half-Life 2 is a Dark Knight among Wolverines.
Thursday, May 21, 2009
Top Video Games (With a Heavy Emphasis on Story) #10
10. Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion (2006) – PC
This game is unbelievably huge. I picked up the “game of the year” edition, which came with added quests in an add-on called Knights of the Round, and a massive expansion: Shivering Isles. I read in reviews that the main game could take as long as 100 hours to finish and the Shivering Isles expansion adds another 30. It seems hard to believe. What’s even more impressive is that the game manages to keep the stories and gameplay fresh and compelling even after so many countless hours.
From a design perspective, the best part about this RPG is that you can play it however you want. You can treat it like a first-person shooter, albeit with swords and shields, you can play it like a third-person action adventure, a brawler, or a stealth game. You can choose to utilize bows and crossbows, or not. You can use magic and spells, or not. It makes no difference. The opportunity exists for you to play exactly how you like. Being an RPG, you do have to make the requisite character creation choices when you start out, but the level-up system is where the genius kicks in. If you want to level up a particular attribute or skill, just perform the respective action. If you want more speed, run. For agility, jump around everywhere. You swim to swim faster, you attack to improve competence with a particular weapon group, and you use magic to improve you magical prowess. It’s so simple that it’s a wonder why nobody ever thought of this before. I jumped, instead of walked, everywhere for the first little while and ended up with an absurdly high and long bounce. Yay!
Now back to the game’s size: when you leave the first dungeon, you’ll step out into an expansive landscape. It is a massive continent with 7 major city centers, but also an endless number of villages, roadside inns, caves, Elven halls, obelisks, and artifacts. There is much to see, and the flora, fauna, geography and architecture is distinct in each area. There are no loading screens as you travel the overworld, which is remarkable considering it would take you an hour to walk from the southern tip to the northern tip. Luckily you can requisition a horse, and once you have been to a location you can fast-travel there by clicking your map.
The main quest takes you all over the map, but is relatively short and restrictive. The real meat is in the sidequests, which are nearly infinite. They never become repetitive, like you imagine they would, and all have been well-thought out and are deeply layered. Many play with standard quest expectations and conventions. Take for example a quest that has a middle-aged women hire you to kill a pack of mountain lions that visit her property at night. You investigate and find that a spiteful neighbor has been planting fresh meet in your employers back yard to summon the beasts. Instead of killing the lions, which is also an option, the long term solution is to deal with the evil neighbor. My favorite quest has you searching for an artist who has been cursed, trapped within his own painting. You go in after him, into a world of soft pastel and smudgy trolls. There is so much variety to the adventures you can have. Some are easy, some are next to impossibly, such as trying to cure vampirism which you may accidentally fall victim too.
The game has two main guilds you can join, the fighters’ guild and magicians’ guild and two secret guilds, the thieves’ guild and the assassins’ guild. You can guess which ones are more fun. You can perform duties for each guild, working your way up the ladder, eventually advancing to the highest rank. This may take as long as 10 hours per guild, and this is only a fraction of the extra quests the game has to offer.
Alas, there is a sad ending to my story. I had logged around 60 hours of game time: I was finished the main quest, I had worked my way up the ranks in the guilds, but not all the way, and I had completed a huge number of sidequests. It was evident that I was still far from total completion, but I felt like a change of pace so I decided to visit The Shivering Isles: a location I had totally ignored up to this point. This area exists in an alternate universe to the main world, and it is a long journey just to get there. The landscape and architecture is radically different here. Where the main world is grounded in medieval realism, Shivering Isles is a fantastical fairy-tale world complete with giant mushrooms and magical extremophiles. It’s a nice change of pace. It wasn’t long after my first visit here that I had to take my computer in to have the wireless fixed. They wiped my hardrive and I lost everything, except for my documents which I had backed up. Will I find it in myself to take the journey again? Maybe one day.
By the way, the game features the voices of Sean Bean and Patrick Stewert.
This game is unbelievably huge. I picked up the “game of the year” edition, which came with added quests in an add-on called Knights of the Round, and a massive expansion: Shivering Isles. I read in reviews that the main game could take as long as 100 hours to finish and the Shivering Isles expansion adds another 30. It seems hard to believe. What’s even more impressive is that the game manages to keep the stories and gameplay fresh and compelling even after so many countless hours.
From a design perspective, the best part about this RPG is that you can play it however you want. You can treat it like a first-person shooter, albeit with swords and shields, you can play it like a third-person action adventure, a brawler, or a stealth game. You can choose to utilize bows and crossbows, or not. You can use magic and spells, or not. It makes no difference. The opportunity exists for you to play exactly how you like. Being an RPG, you do have to make the requisite character creation choices when you start out, but the level-up system is where the genius kicks in. If you want to level up a particular attribute or skill, just perform the respective action. If you want more speed, run. For agility, jump around everywhere. You swim to swim faster, you attack to improve competence with a particular weapon group, and you use magic to improve you magical prowess. It’s so simple that it’s a wonder why nobody ever thought of this before. I jumped, instead of walked, everywhere for the first little while and ended up with an absurdly high and long bounce. Yay!
Now back to the game’s size: when you leave the first dungeon, you’ll step out into an expansive landscape. It is a massive continent with 7 major city centers, but also an endless number of villages, roadside inns, caves, Elven halls, obelisks, and artifacts. There is much to see, and the flora, fauna, geography and architecture is distinct in each area. There are no loading screens as you travel the overworld, which is remarkable considering it would take you an hour to walk from the southern tip to the northern tip. Luckily you can requisition a horse, and once you have been to a location you can fast-travel there by clicking your map.
The main quest takes you all over the map, but is relatively short and restrictive. The real meat is in the sidequests, which are nearly infinite. They never become repetitive, like you imagine they would, and all have been well-thought out and are deeply layered. Many play with standard quest expectations and conventions. Take for example a quest that has a middle-aged women hire you to kill a pack of mountain lions that visit her property at night. You investigate and find that a spiteful neighbor has been planting fresh meet in your employers back yard to summon the beasts. Instead of killing the lions, which is also an option, the long term solution is to deal with the evil neighbor. My favorite quest has you searching for an artist who has been cursed, trapped within his own painting. You go in after him, into a world of soft pastel and smudgy trolls. There is so much variety to the adventures you can have. Some are easy, some are next to impossibly, such as trying to cure vampirism which you may accidentally fall victim too.
The game has two main guilds you can join, the fighters’ guild and magicians’ guild and two secret guilds, the thieves’ guild and the assassins’ guild. You can guess which ones are more fun. You can perform duties for each guild, working your way up the ladder, eventually advancing to the highest rank. This may take as long as 10 hours per guild, and this is only a fraction of the extra quests the game has to offer.
Alas, there is a sad ending to my story. I had logged around 60 hours of game time: I was finished the main quest, I had worked my way up the ranks in the guilds, but not all the way, and I had completed a huge number of sidequests. It was evident that I was still far from total completion, but I felt like a change of pace so I decided to visit The Shivering Isles: a location I had totally ignored up to this point. This area exists in an alternate universe to the main world, and it is a long journey just to get there. The landscape and architecture is radically different here. Where the main world is grounded in medieval realism, Shivering Isles is a fantastical fairy-tale world complete with giant mushrooms and magical extremophiles. It’s a nice change of pace. It wasn’t long after my first visit here that I had to take my computer in to have the wireless fixed. They wiped my hardrive and I lost everything, except for my documents which I had backed up. Will I find it in myself to take the journey again? Maybe one day.
By the way, the game features the voices of Sean Bean and Patrick Stewert.
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
Top Video Games (With a Heavy Emphasis on Story) #11
11. The Witcher (2007) – PC
I went through a phase of extreme obsession with The Witcher recently. In a single day, I was playing the excellent RPG computer game, reading The Last Wish (the first of Andrzej Sapkowski’s book series featuring the character to be translated from Polish to English), and watching the admittedly awful Polish television series based on the books, which aired in 2001. Geralt of Rivia is just the coolest character around. He’s a huge badass, but is morally complicated at the same time. He slices up monsters and villains coldly, but has a soft heart for beautiful sorceresses and small children. He lives in a world of gray, where choices force him from comfortable neutrality – the option he consistently preaches – toward a lesser of two evils. It’s a fairy-tale world turned on its head, where the moral of the story is never simple or plain. In the world of The Witcher, if something looks superficially good and innocent, you can be sure that evil is lurking under the skin.
Developers made the courageous decision not to recycle a storyline from the novels, but craft their own plot to exist seamlessly in Sapkowski’s world. It is a great compliment to their creative talent that their story can easily stand against Sapkowski’s own Witcher stories in quality, themes, characters, humor, and moral ambiguity. All the elements of a good Witcher tale are here. The Witcher tells one of the best stories in the history of the videogame medium, and it does so by respecting the source material, while developing its own unique tale in a fully-realized world.
I can’t say enough good things about The Witcher. Its gameplay is fun, the graphics are gorgeous, the landscapes are huge and varied, the game is epically long with many sidequests to keep you busy, and all the voice-acting is superb. Especially if you pick up the Enhanced Edition, which was released a year later and cleaned up many lingering issues like repetitive textures and long loading times: elements that are forgivable considering the obvious ambition behind the project developed by a small Polish company with limited resources over a three year period. It is clear that these folks love their job and are passionate about the material.
The real attraction of the story is having to make very difficult moral decisions. One of the earliest of these involves domestic disturbances in the outskirts of a major metropolitan center. The rural village is home to a witch who, for the right price, will concoct potions or spells for townsfolk who want revenge on a disloyal partner or who want to cause other forms of discrete mischief. As Geralt’s own personal investigations begin to wrap up, it becomes clear that he will be unable to avoid weighing in on the conflict. Upon uncovering the witch’s devious deeds, the townspeople call for nothing less than a burning. The people blindly refuse to acknowledge their own responsibility for the mischief, and want the witch to pay for everybody’s sins. Geralt is faced with a stark dilemma: he can persecute the witch, along with the townsfolk, he can remain neutral, allowing the people to burn the girl alive, or he can intervene and offer the witch protection. The latter, and seemingly less evil choice, angers the townsfolk who amass with pitchforks and torches, refusing to allow Geralt an egress. So, by protecting the young witch, Geralt is placed in a situation where he must defend himself against an entire town, inevitably slaughtering them all before moving on. Well, at least you saved the witch.
After the events in the outskirts, you travel to the main city. Here you become involved in all kinds of political intrigue, social and class conflicts, illegal smuggling, racism, plagues, war, and everything else you can think of. Just when it all begins to be a bit too much, you leave and awake in a small lakeside village called Murky Waters. This is my favorite area of the game. It feels like a typical fairy tale setting, but darkness lurks under the veil of this beautifully quaint village, its golden fields, and sparkling green rivers.
I really love this game and I can’t recommend the experience enough. The Witcher is a masterpiece.
I went through a phase of extreme obsession with The Witcher recently. In a single day, I was playing the excellent RPG computer game, reading The Last Wish (the first of Andrzej Sapkowski’s book series featuring the character to be translated from Polish to English), and watching the admittedly awful Polish television series based on the books, which aired in 2001. Geralt of Rivia is just the coolest character around. He’s a huge badass, but is morally complicated at the same time. He slices up monsters and villains coldly, but has a soft heart for beautiful sorceresses and small children. He lives in a world of gray, where choices force him from comfortable neutrality – the option he consistently preaches – toward a lesser of two evils. It’s a fairy-tale world turned on its head, where the moral of the story is never simple or plain. In the world of The Witcher, if something looks superficially good and innocent, you can be sure that evil is lurking under the skin.
Developers made the courageous decision not to recycle a storyline from the novels, but craft their own plot to exist seamlessly in Sapkowski’s world. It is a great compliment to their creative talent that their story can easily stand against Sapkowski’s own Witcher stories in quality, themes, characters, humor, and moral ambiguity. All the elements of a good Witcher tale are here. The Witcher tells one of the best stories in the history of the videogame medium, and it does so by respecting the source material, while developing its own unique tale in a fully-realized world.
I can’t say enough good things about The Witcher. Its gameplay is fun, the graphics are gorgeous, the landscapes are huge and varied, the game is epically long with many sidequests to keep you busy, and all the voice-acting is superb. Especially if you pick up the Enhanced Edition, which was released a year later and cleaned up many lingering issues like repetitive textures and long loading times: elements that are forgivable considering the obvious ambition behind the project developed by a small Polish company with limited resources over a three year period. It is clear that these folks love their job and are passionate about the material.
The real attraction of the story is having to make very difficult moral decisions. One of the earliest of these involves domestic disturbances in the outskirts of a major metropolitan center. The rural village is home to a witch who, for the right price, will concoct potions or spells for townsfolk who want revenge on a disloyal partner or who want to cause other forms of discrete mischief. As Geralt’s own personal investigations begin to wrap up, it becomes clear that he will be unable to avoid weighing in on the conflict. Upon uncovering the witch’s devious deeds, the townspeople call for nothing less than a burning. The people blindly refuse to acknowledge their own responsibility for the mischief, and want the witch to pay for everybody’s sins. Geralt is faced with a stark dilemma: he can persecute the witch, along with the townsfolk, he can remain neutral, allowing the people to burn the girl alive, or he can intervene and offer the witch protection. The latter, and seemingly less evil choice, angers the townsfolk who amass with pitchforks and torches, refusing to allow Geralt an egress. So, by protecting the young witch, Geralt is placed in a situation where he must defend himself against an entire town, inevitably slaughtering them all before moving on. Well, at least you saved the witch.
After the events in the outskirts, you travel to the main city. Here you become involved in all kinds of political intrigue, social and class conflicts, illegal smuggling, racism, plagues, war, and everything else you can think of. Just when it all begins to be a bit too much, you leave and awake in a small lakeside village called Murky Waters. This is my favorite area of the game. It feels like a typical fairy tale setting, but darkness lurks under the veil of this beautifully quaint village, its golden fields, and sparkling green rivers.
I really love this game and I can’t recommend the experience enough. The Witcher is a masterpiece.
Album Review: Midnight Oil - Scream in Blue Live (1992)
Midnight Oil - Scream in Blue Live (1992)
Normally I wouldn’t review a live album, mainly because most of them suck. With all of the studio wizardry involved in music production these days, virtually everything is given a glossy sheen (regardless of genre). In addition, more and more songs would seem to rely on studio manipulation, rendering a live version lackluster. And even when a band can kick ass live, there’s no guarantee that their sound will translate to a live album sufficiently (these days of course). This album, however, is an exception, but in chewing on my own words, it’s not quite “these days.” Still, Midnight Oil’s Scream in Blue Live (1992) ranks as one of the best live albums I’ve heard in the past two decades, and is just a great live album with or without my opinion.
As far as Australian bands go, ACDC might be the most famous, but Midnight Oil is inarguably the best and most important (and even ACDC fans will admit that their band is one-sided to say the least). Political at heart, and always a musical force to be reckoned with, the Oils evolved from their surf-punk genesis in the late 70s to become a band of many faces over their 25 year span; yet, throughout that time, the band retained a fierce live reputation, channeling their music and vision with such energy that every show felt like Armageddon. All of this becomes crystal clear with the opening “Scream in Blue,” an instrumental worthy of the atom bomb (picture it as the sound of a guitar dying). While so much can be said about the band, Scream in Blue Live might be the best introduction and explanation. Unlike typical live albums, Scream in Blue Live culls cuts from several different performances spanning the better part of a decade (1982-1990). While such a tactic often results in something noticeably inconsistent, the songs here flow into one another seamlessly and are tracked like a playlist, as if they all came from one monumental show. Because their early albums were mostly recorded live in the studio, the live versions don’t sound much different, but that’s a good thing. Songs like “Brave Faces” and “Powderworks” roar with transcendence from their pivotal 1982 performance at Sidney’s Capitol Theatre, yet the road tested classics like “Read About It” and “Hercules” from their 1990 performances deliver even more power. The real treat, however, is the translation of songs from their more recent polished albums. Their monster 1987 hit “Bed’s Are Burning” is stripped of its sheen to reveal a superior raw and heavy soul, and “Dreamworld” is so enjoyably propulsive that you wonder how the band could ever stand to craft a polished album. The best song by far is “Progress,” from the infamous 1990 Exxon protest in New York, where Midnight Oil challenged the world at the top of their international popularity. Few live albums are able to capture a band’s raw power and presence, but Scream in Blue Live succeeds, making it a necessity for even the casual fan.
The Oils have often been credited with being the most important political band ever. This is of course debatable: bands like The Clash and the Sex Pistols burned brighter, and Rage Against The Machine was more intense, but the Oils outlasted all of them. And even though U2 made more money, Midnight Oil avoided the mediocrity and embarrassment; they just stuck to their guns, which is certainly apparent here. If the ultimate goal of a live album is to justify the existence of an artist or group, then one would think that more TLC should be given to such a project, given the numerous casualties. Fortunately, Scream in Blue Live is an accurate representation of a band that truly mattered; it’s more than just a justification, it’s a testament.
As far as Australian bands go, ACDC might be the most famous, but Midnight Oil is inarguably the best and most important (and even ACDC fans will admit that their band is one-sided to say the least). Political at heart, and always a musical force to be reckoned with, the Oils evolved from their surf-punk genesis in the late 70s to become a band of many faces over their 25 year span; yet, throughout that time, the band retained a fierce live reputation, channeling their music and vision with such energy that every show felt like Armageddon. All of this becomes crystal clear with the opening “Scream in Blue,” an instrumental worthy of the atom bomb (picture it as the sound of a guitar dying). While so much can be said about the band, Scream in Blue Live might be the best introduction and explanation. Unlike typical live albums, Scream in Blue Live culls cuts from several different performances spanning the better part of a decade (1982-1990). While such a tactic often results in something noticeably inconsistent, the songs here flow into one another seamlessly and are tracked like a playlist, as if they all came from one monumental show. Because their early albums were mostly recorded live in the studio, the live versions don’t sound much different, but that’s a good thing. Songs like “Brave Faces” and “Powderworks” roar with transcendence from their pivotal 1982 performance at Sidney’s Capitol Theatre, yet the road tested classics like “Read About It” and “Hercules” from their 1990 performances deliver even more power. The real treat, however, is the translation of songs from their more recent polished albums. Their monster 1987 hit “Bed’s Are Burning” is stripped of its sheen to reveal a superior raw and heavy soul, and “Dreamworld” is so enjoyably propulsive that you wonder how the band could ever stand to craft a polished album. The best song by far is “Progress,” from the infamous 1990 Exxon protest in New York, where Midnight Oil challenged the world at the top of their international popularity. Few live albums are able to capture a band’s raw power and presence, but Scream in Blue Live succeeds, making it a necessity for even the casual fan.
The Oils have often been credited with being the most important political band ever. This is of course debatable: bands like The Clash and the Sex Pistols burned brighter, and Rage Against The Machine was more intense, but the Oils outlasted all of them. And even though U2 made more money, Midnight Oil avoided the mediocrity and embarrassment; they just stuck to their guns, which is certainly apparent here. If the ultimate goal of a live album is to justify the existence of an artist or group, then one would think that more TLC should be given to such a project, given the numerous casualties. Fortunately, Scream in Blue Live is an accurate representation of a band that truly mattered; it’s more than just a justification, it’s a testament.
3.5/5
"260 million people, I can't hear you at all / Some say that's progress, I say that's cruel"
S. McSmoke-Smoke
Monday, May 18, 2009
Top Video Games (With a Heavy Emphasis on Story) #12
12. Fall Out 3 (2008) – PC
“I don’t want to set the world on fire. I just want to start a flame in your heart.” This 1941 song by The Ink plays as the game opens, the camera pans backwards out of the skeleton of a disintegrating bus, and we are shown the nuclear wasteland that once was Washington, D.C. This is the tone the game strives for, encapsulated here in the opening moments, a self-conscious self-criticism of society gone terribly wrong. That’s not to say the game is a spoof, it is deadly serious, but subtle wit and humor is scattered across the gameworld, giving the story some satirical depth.
The story begins much like Plato’s Analogy of the Cave. Because you get to name your own character, I named mine James. It’s a solid name and assists with the immersion. James is born in Vault 101, an underground bomb shelter that was designed to keep a population alive for hundreds of years, while waiting for nuclear fallout to dissipate. The first bit of confusion arose when I realized that my father is also named James (and played by Liam Neeson). Anyway, the idea here is that for some undetermined reason the shelter has been kept locked way longer than necessary, and civilization has been confined to the vault for generations. Vault 101, its teachings, philosophy, morality, and skills are all James knows until he turns 18. James, his father has left the vault mysteriously and disappeared, and now James, his son, most leave the confines of his world to track his father down. A lot more is at stake here than James initially realizes, but I will keep those secrets safe for now.
Having left the vault, there is a whole world to explore which is populated by thieves, bandits, lawmen, androids, giant insects, and mutants: people who have been exposed to absurd amounts of radiation and are grossly mutated. These mutants are an interesting character class, as they are, for the most part, peaceful people that are feared and subjugated by the normal folks. Racism analogy? All this life fits in naturally to the gargantuan environment, and all the origins of cities and settlements can be deeply explored and understood along the way. Part of the fun is in exploring the dilapidated cityscape. You will only discover the majority of locations by diverging from the main quest. Some of the highlights are a cavernous dwelling ran entirely by children, a mansion where a once-wealthy socialite looks after two attractive young ladies who are there at his pleasure, and a town held captive by a feud between a renegade army of robots and a man in an ant suit who commands an army of large, mutated critters.
There is so much attention to detail in this world that it is impossible not to become completely immersed. One of the first things you’ll notice is that your vault suit comes with a FM radio receiver, when you leave the vault you will pick up Enclave Radio: a station produced by the remains of the American government and hosted by a man (voiced by Malcolm McDowell) who claims to be the president. The broadcast is over-the-top patriotism filled with motivational monologues and marching music. More enjoyable is Galaxy New Radio, a station that plays a wide variety of oldies, all carrying apocalyptically-themed lyrics. The deejay reports wasteland news, constantly updated as you further your quest. If you are kind of an asshole, than the deejay will relay stories about how there is an escapee from Vault 101 who is terrorizing the innocent, but if you are nice and save people, you may be referred to as an avenger and savior. It’s a neat gimmick, and easily makes GNR my frequency of choice, although you will find many more stations along the journey.
The gameplay is filled with morality choices, some more difficult than others, that give a karma rating. This rating influences how characters react to you throughout the wasteland and will give you multiple endings predicated upon your actions. The first major dilemma you encounter is in Megaton, a town constructed around an undetonated atom bomb. It just sits in a pool of radioactive waste at the center of the town; while some gather around to pray, others just ignore it. A shady character approaches you and solicits you to detonate the bomb, killing everyone in town. You are promised plentiful rewards for this despicable deed, but on the other hand, you can choose to disarm the bomb and win the admiration of Megaton’s townsfolk. It goes without saying that detonating the bomb results in a rather steep drop to your karma rating.
You can treat the action like a first-person shooter, but that would be a crime because Fallout 3 has a truly unique and gloriously more graphic way to retire enemies. It’s called the V.A.T.S. system. You simply pause time, choose which area of the enemy’s body to target, and then resume for an automatic, slow-motion beat-down. You can sever limbs, decapitate, or eviscerate any enemy with fantastically bloody explicitness. This is half the fun.
The main journey may not be as epic as other RPGs, but like most RPGs the real fun is in exploring the gameworld. Few games could ever hope to meet the high standards that Fallout 3 sets in this regard. There is so much to do, so much to see, and so many people and creatures to meet that you can’t help but admire the work that must have gone in, even at the conceptual stage, to make it all work. This game took 3 years to make, six times longer than most movies. It’s nice to see that all that work paid off brilliantly.
“I don’t want to set the world on fire. I just want to start a flame in your heart.” This 1941 song by The Ink plays as the game opens, the camera pans backwards out of the skeleton of a disintegrating bus, and we are shown the nuclear wasteland that once was Washington, D.C. This is the tone the game strives for, encapsulated here in the opening moments, a self-conscious self-criticism of society gone terribly wrong. That’s not to say the game is a spoof, it is deadly serious, but subtle wit and humor is scattered across the gameworld, giving the story some satirical depth.
The story begins much like Plato’s Analogy of the Cave. Because you get to name your own character, I named mine James. It’s a solid name and assists with the immersion. James is born in Vault 101, an underground bomb shelter that was designed to keep a population alive for hundreds of years, while waiting for nuclear fallout to dissipate. The first bit of confusion arose when I realized that my father is also named James (and played by Liam Neeson). Anyway, the idea here is that for some undetermined reason the shelter has been kept locked way longer than necessary, and civilization has been confined to the vault for generations. Vault 101, its teachings, philosophy, morality, and skills are all James knows until he turns 18. James, his father has left the vault mysteriously and disappeared, and now James, his son, most leave the confines of his world to track his father down. A lot more is at stake here than James initially realizes, but I will keep those secrets safe for now.
Having left the vault, there is a whole world to explore which is populated by thieves, bandits, lawmen, androids, giant insects, and mutants: people who have been exposed to absurd amounts of radiation and are grossly mutated. These mutants are an interesting character class, as they are, for the most part, peaceful people that are feared and subjugated by the normal folks. Racism analogy? All this life fits in naturally to the gargantuan environment, and all the origins of cities and settlements can be deeply explored and understood along the way. Part of the fun is in exploring the dilapidated cityscape. You will only discover the majority of locations by diverging from the main quest. Some of the highlights are a cavernous dwelling ran entirely by children, a mansion where a once-wealthy socialite looks after two attractive young ladies who are there at his pleasure, and a town held captive by a feud between a renegade army of robots and a man in an ant suit who commands an army of large, mutated critters.
There is so much attention to detail in this world that it is impossible not to become completely immersed. One of the first things you’ll notice is that your vault suit comes with a FM radio receiver, when you leave the vault you will pick up Enclave Radio: a station produced by the remains of the American government and hosted by a man (voiced by Malcolm McDowell) who claims to be the president. The broadcast is over-the-top patriotism filled with motivational monologues and marching music. More enjoyable is Galaxy New Radio, a station that plays a wide variety of oldies, all carrying apocalyptically-themed lyrics. The deejay reports wasteland news, constantly updated as you further your quest. If you are kind of an asshole, than the deejay will relay stories about how there is an escapee from Vault 101 who is terrorizing the innocent, but if you are nice and save people, you may be referred to as an avenger and savior. It’s a neat gimmick, and easily makes GNR my frequency of choice, although you will find many more stations along the journey.
The gameplay is filled with morality choices, some more difficult than others, that give a karma rating. This rating influences how characters react to you throughout the wasteland and will give you multiple endings predicated upon your actions. The first major dilemma you encounter is in Megaton, a town constructed around an undetonated atom bomb. It just sits in a pool of radioactive waste at the center of the town; while some gather around to pray, others just ignore it. A shady character approaches you and solicits you to detonate the bomb, killing everyone in town. You are promised plentiful rewards for this despicable deed, but on the other hand, you can choose to disarm the bomb and win the admiration of Megaton’s townsfolk. It goes without saying that detonating the bomb results in a rather steep drop to your karma rating.
You can treat the action like a first-person shooter, but that would be a crime because Fallout 3 has a truly unique and gloriously more graphic way to retire enemies. It’s called the V.A.T.S. system. You simply pause time, choose which area of the enemy’s body to target, and then resume for an automatic, slow-motion beat-down. You can sever limbs, decapitate, or eviscerate any enemy with fantastically bloody explicitness. This is half the fun.
The main journey may not be as epic as other RPGs, but like most RPGs the real fun is in exploring the gameworld. Few games could ever hope to meet the high standards that Fallout 3 sets in this regard. There is so much to do, so much to see, and so many people and creatures to meet that you can’t help but admire the work that must have gone in, even at the conceptual stage, to make it all work. This game took 3 years to make, six times longer than most movies. It’s nice to see that all that work paid off brilliantly.
Top Video Games (With a Heavy Emphasis on Story) #13
13. Resident Evil 2 (1998) - PC
This game is disgustingly fun. The Resident Evil series has always banked on the instinctive human desire to blow zombies’ heads off, and this chilling sequel fulfills that mandate and then some. The sequel is a lot more serious than its predecessor, although not without a sense of humor, but gone are the absurdly campy cutscenes and atrocious dialogue. The concept, however, remains unchanged: you travel the zombie-plagued streets of Raccoon City and, finally, find shelter in a spooky police station. This is where most of the action takes place. What sets Resident Evil apart from other zombie shooters is the heavy emphasis on puzzles and problem-solving. Yes, you will spend ample time looking for a keys for locked rooms, but other puzzles are more thoughtful. You will find negatives, notes, and letters around the environment that will help you piece together the mystery behind the Umbrella Corporation and their involvement in this outbreak. Resident Evil has some great reveals, many characters have ambiguous allegiances, and you won’t know who is working for whom until the end.
Let’s face it. The real reason we play Resident Evil is to have the shit scared out of us, and, for scares, Resident Evil 2 is the best in the series. The brilliance here is in the shock scares, the ones that make you fall out of your seat as your heart races to the moon. Resident Evil 2 knows that we’re expecting this, and so it plays with these conventions. You’ll walk passed a boarded window and nothing will happen. Assured that it is safe, you will approach the area with nonchalance on your way back, but that is when they get you. The boards break and hands reach in to grab you. My favorite scare is in the police station interrogation room. There is a key you require in a cabinet on the other side of the room, but to reach it you must cross the path of a one-way glass mirror. You, of course, are on the mirror side. Noticing the obvious gimmick, you walk back and forth across the room, waiting for the attack. Nothing happens. Contented, you grab the key and go to leave. Crash! The enemy bursts through the glass.
If you like being scared, you can’t lose with Resident Evil 2.
This game is disgustingly fun. The Resident Evil series has always banked on the instinctive human desire to blow zombies’ heads off, and this chilling sequel fulfills that mandate and then some. The sequel is a lot more serious than its predecessor, although not without a sense of humor, but gone are the absurdly campy cutscenes and atrocious dialogue. The concept, however, remains unchanged: you travel the zombie-plagued streets of Raccoon City and, finally, find shelter in a spooky police station. This is where most of the action takes place. What sets Resident Evil apart from other zombie shooters is the heavy emphasis on puzzles and problem-solving. Yes, you will spend ample time looking for a keys for locked rooms, but other puzzles are more thoughtful. You will find negatives, notes, and letters around the environment that will help you piece together the mystery behind the Umbrella Corporation and their involvement in this outbreak. Resident Evil has some great reveals, many characters have ambiguous allegiances, and you won’t know who is working for whom until the end.
Let’s face it. The real reason we play Resident Evil is to have the shit scared out of us, and, for scares, Resident Evil 2 is the best in the series. The brilliance here is in the shock scares, the ones that make you fall out of your seat as your heart races to the moon. Resident Evil 2 knows that we’re expecting this, and so it plays with these conventions. You’ll walk passed a boarded window and nothing will happen. Assured that it is safe, you will approach the area with nonchalance on your way back, but that is when they get you. The boards break and hands reach in to grab you. My favorite scare is in the police station interrogation room. There is a key you require in a cabinet on the other side of the room, but to reach it you must cross the path of a one-way glass mirror. You, of course, are on the mirror side. Noticing the obvious gimmick, you walk back and forth across the room, waiting for the attack. Nothing happens. Contented, you grab the key and go to leave. Crash! The enemy bursts through the glass.
If you like being scared, you can’t lose with Resident Evil 2.
Sunday, May 17, 2009
Top Video Games (With a Heavy Emphasis on Story) #14
14. Final Fantasy VI (1994) – SNES
The history of Final Fantasy VI is confusing. Some may remember it as Final Fantasy III on Super Nintendo. The numerical discrepancy is a result of widely divergent release dates between Japan, where the games are made, and North America. It takes a great deal of time to prepare these games for release outside of native Japan, because there is a wealth of dialogue that needs to be translated, along with all the other packaging and menu literature. Final Fantasy I came out for the original Nintendo in both Japan and North America, and, in Japan, Final Fantasies II and III also came out for Nintendo, but while localizing the sequels for North America, Super Nintendo was released, the localization was halted, and we would not see these sequels for well over fifteen years. So when Final Fantasy IV was released in Japan, it became Final Fantasy II in North America, the first entry on the Super Nintendo platform. For some reason Final Fantasy V was skipped and Final Fantasy VI was released as Final Fantasy III on North American Super Nintendos. Phew. Thankfully today, with the growing homogeny of global media distribution, most of these discrepancies have worked themselves out, and all the franchise sequels have be reinserted into their proper order worldwide, as the earlier games are remade or updated for release on handhelds.
I`m sorry if that was boring, but I find the history here really interesting. Now onto the game. Final Fantasy VI is an extremely important entry in the franchise, widely regarded as the best. It has the longest, most intricate, involving storyline that the series has ever told, it has one of the weirdest, most frightening villains aside from Sephiroth (Final Fantasy VII), and the soundtrack is one of the highlights of Nobuo Uematsu`s work for the franchise.
Final Fantasy VI is the only core franchise entry to feature a female in the lead role; although, after the initial chapters, it becomes clear that this is an ensemble piece. Final Fantasy VI has one of the largest casts in franchise history, it even has a couple optional characters that are easy to miss altogether if you`re not paying attention. The game spends an incredible amount of time building each character, everyone has a complicated history that slowly fleshes out as you progress. The majority of the game time, which is epic, is spent exploring individual characters and relationships, it only briefly lingers on the main plotline about a group rebels seeking to overthrow an anarchistic dictator who seeks to reunite a long forgotten magic with modern technology , which would, of course, result in total devastation. It is this total dedication to the characters that makes VI deeply memorable.
Nobuo Uematsu really shines here, producing a catalogue of themes and melodies and span three full discs, a first for the series. It`s amazing that Uematsu composes such beautiful, emotional music given the limitations of the technology he had to work with; the music was still limited to 16-bit midi tracks. I have come to appreciate his soundtrack even further after picking up the Piano Collection of music from Final Fantasy VI: hearing his music on a real instrument only affirms the composer`s genius. If you doubt me, look no further than Terra`s Theme that opens the game, while we watch our enslaved protagonist cross a barren, frozen landscape, on her way to obliterate an innocent village.
The graphics are about as advanced as one could ever expect for the Super Nintendo, yet the emotional responses of the characters are still limited to simple winks and anime-type expressions like teardrops or exclamation marks. The dialogue carries a lot of the weight that the visuals cannot, and the characters, their histories, and their journeys still manage to retain a lot of potency. The artwork is till gorgeous and the themes are still timeless. Final Fantasy VI is a classic in every sense of the word.
The history of Final Fantasy VI is confusing. Some may remember it as Final Fantasy III on Super Nintendo. The numerical discrepancy is a result of widely divergent release dates between Japan, where the games are made, and North America. It takes a great deal of time to prepare these games for release outside of native Japan, because there is a wealth of dialogue that needs to be translated, along with all the other packaging and menu literature. Final Fantasy I came out for the original Nintendo in both Japan and North America, and, in Japan, Final Fantasies II and III also came out for Nintendo, but while localizing the sequels for North America, Super Nintendo was released, the localization was halted, and we would not see these sequels for well over fifteen years. So when Final Fantasy IV was released in Japan, it became Final Fantasy II in North America, the first entry on the Super Nintendo platform. For some reason Final Fantasy V was skipped and Final Fantasy VI was released as Final Fantasy III on North American Super Nintendos. Phew. Thankfully today, with the growing homogeny of global media distribution, most of these discrepancies have worked themselves out, and all the franchise sequels have be reinserted into their proper order worldwide, as the earlier games are remade or updated for release on handhelds.
I`m sorry if that was boring, but I find the history here really interesting. Now onto the game. Final Fantasy VI is an extremely important entry in the franchise, widely regarded as the best. It has the longest, most intricate, involving storyline that the series has ever told, it has one of the weirdest, most frightening villains aside from Sephiroth (Final Fantasy VII), and the soundtrack is one of the highlights of Nobuo Uematsu`s work for the franchise.
Final Fantasy VI is the only core franchise entry to feature a female in the lead role; although, after the initial chapters, it becomes clear that this is an ensemble piece. Final Fantasy VI has one of the largest casts in franchise history, it even has a couple optional characters that are easy to miss altogether if you`re not paying attention. The game spends an incredible amount of time building each character, everyone has a complicated history that slowly fleshes out as you progress. The majority of the game time, which is epic, is spent exploring individual characters and relationships, it only briefly lingers on the main plotline about a group rebels seeking to overthrow an anarchistic dictator who seeks to reunite a long forgotten magic with modern technology , which would, of course, result in total devastation. It is this total dedication to the characters that makes VI deeply memorable.
Nobuo Uematsu really shines here, producing a catalogue of themes and melodies and span three full discs, a first for the series. It`s amazing that Uematsu composes such beautiful, emotional music given the limitations of the technology he had to work with; the music was still limited to 16-bit midi tracks. I have come to appreciate his soundtrack even further after picking up the Piano Collection of music from Final Fantasy VI: hearing his music on a real instrument only affirms the composer`s genius. If you doubt me, look no further than Terra`s Theme that opens the game, while we watch our enslaved protagonist cross a barren, frozen landscape, on her way to obliterate an innocent village.
The graphics are about as advanced as one could ever expect for the Super Nintendo, yet the emotional responses of the characters are still limited to simple winks and anime-type expressions like teardrops or exclamation marks. The dialogue carries a lot of the weight that the visuals cannot, and the characters, their histories, and their journeys still manage to retain a lot of potency. The artwork is till gorgeous and the themes are still timeless. Final Fantasy VI is a classic in every sense of the word.
Saturday, May 16, 2009
Album Review: Cracker - Sunrise in the Land of Milk and Honey (2009)
Cracker - Sunrise in the Land of Milk and Honey (2009)
It’s been nearly two decades since roots-rock heroes Cracker collapsed onto the scene, and they have a lot to be proud of. Most of all, they’re survivors. Never ones to be truly mainstream, it’s pretty amazing that they made it. But it’s like the stubborn cockroach: just be your bizarre self and you’ll be fine, and with Sunrise in the Land of Milk and Honey (2009), Cracker sounds pretty much the same as they did with their eponymous debut back in 1992, but that’s just fine. It’s clear that they abandoned their superstar dreams long ago; you might even say that they never actually had any, especially since their commercial rise and fall spans only the first four years of the band’s existence, with them being ejected from the major label scene almost seven years ago. Despite all of that, the band continued to produce some of the best tongue and cheek music in their genre, carving themselves a surprisingly safe niche in a nonsensical cocoon.
While the majority of Cracker’s post-2000 albums saw the band expanding their cast and sonic ambition a little bit and exploring a variety of different musical styles, Sunrise... is lean and mean. Whittled down to a foursome now, the band delivers a strong hard-hitting collection of songs, void of frills and truly back to basics. No matter what form the band embodies, however, the creative core is and has always revolved around the songwriting partnership of David Lowery and Johnny Hickman, and here they have given one of their hardest albums ever, exposing the punk-folk spirit of their earlier work. Sunrise... is quick, efficient, and straight to the no point, as is apparent on the opening “Yalla Yalla (Let’s Go)” and “Show Me How This Thing Works.” From this, the rest of the album mostly blisters and roars. It’s classic Cracker, complete with typical T&C titles (“Hand Me My Inhaler”), ground floor rockers (“We All Shine A Light” and “Hey Bret (You Know What Time It Is)”), and crazy lyrics (every song). If there is a theme to extract from the lunacy, it’s that the sky is falling and the world is going hell. It may be a little darker than the usual Cracker fair, but such are the times. That being said, this is not a political record per say, it’s more like they’re revisiting their sardonic worldview from The Golden Age (1996), except it’s over a decade later and things are just more messed up. Amidst the fury, however, a few moments of solace do exist in the form of “Darling One” and “Turn On, Tune In, Drop Out With Me,” both of which rank as some of the band’s greatest compositions and reflect a more accessible production (it’s the sweet to go with the sour). While these two songs are both pretty, they retain the apocalyptic jargon. All in all, the album is bleak, but the band is laughing in the face of destruction, and you would be hard-pressed to find a more enjoyable band to have around at the world’s end.
In the end, Sunrise in the Land of Milk and Honey is a welcome return to the band’s roots, and while it may not be their finest offering, it’s certainly one of their strongest and most immediate. And even if the band has darker times on the mind, they will no doubt soldier on for as long as possible, and continue to find the humor, irony, and absurdities in life. Cracker is here to stay, as they always have been. So we should all follow Cracker’s lead and make like a cockroach and survive!
While the majority of Cracker’s post-2000 albums saw the band expanding their cast and sonic ambition a little bit and exploring a variety of different musical styles, Sunrise... is lean and mean. Whittled down to a foursome now, the band delivers a strong hard-hitting collection of songs, void of frills and truly back to basics. No matter what form the band embodies, however, the creative core is and has always revolved around the songwriting partnership of David Lowery and Johnny Hickman, and here they have given one of their hardest albums ever, exposing the punk-folk spirit of their earlier work. Sunrise... is quick, efficient, and straight to the no point, as is apparent on the opening “Yalla Yalla (Let’s Go)” and “Show Me How This Thing Works.” From this, the rest of the album mostly blisters and roars. It’s classic Cracker, complete with typical T&C titles (“Hand Me My Inhaler”), ground floor rockers (“We All Shine A Light” and “Hey Bret (You Know What Time It Is)”), and crazy lyrics (every song). If there is a theme to extract from the lunacy, it’s that the sky is falling and the world is going hell. It may be a little darker than the usual Cracker fair, but such are the times. That being said, this is not a political record per say, it’s more like they’re revisiting their sardonic worldview from The Golden Age (1996), except it’s over a decade later and things are just more messed up. Amidst the fury, however, a few moments of solace do exist in the form of “Darling One” and “Turn On, Tune In, Drop Out With Me,” both of which rank as some of the band’s greatest compositions and reflect a more accessible production (it’s the sweet to go with the sour). While these two songs are both pretty, they retain the apocalyptic jargon. All in all, the album is bleak, but the band is laughing in the face of destruction, and you would be hard-pressed to find a more enjoyable band to have around at the world’s end.
In the end, Sunrise in the Land of Milk and Honey is a welcome return to the band’s roots, and while it may not be their finest offering, it’s certainly one of their strongest and most immediate. And even if the band has darker times on the mind, they will no doubt soldier on for as long as possible, and continue to find the humor, irony, and absurdities in life. Cracker is here to stay, as they always have been. So we should all follow Cracker’s lead and make like a cockroach and survive!
3.5/5
"And if you wanna die we can take the low road / Cause dying is easy, it's living that's hard"
S. McSmoke-Smoke
Movie Review: 17 Again (2009)
17 Again (2009)
While many of you (or at least the few of you who actually read these boards) may think it blasphemous for me to even post something like this, hear me out please. I myself was initially very skeptical about 17 Again (2009); it seemed to me just another teen/frat targeted junk house vehicle for newbie hunk Zac Efron (you know, Mr. 24-pack from the High School Musical movies), so I was planning on giving it an eternal miss. Then, however, I started reading interesting reviews from my usual sources, which have always been reliable. After a second rumination on the subject, I decided to see it, and all I can say is that, like Star Trek (2009), do not judge a book by its cover; or more appropriately, do not judge a film by its trailer. 17 Again is an enjoyable, funny, and surprisingly touching movie, and what it lacks in originality it more than compensates in subtle heart and solid acting. And the crazy thing is that Efron can actually act! Who knew?
The film begins at the end of the 1980s, where high school senior Mike O'Donnell (Efron, who is no doubt in a familiar role, but wait!) is well on his way to earning a basketball scholarship and a life of glory. Despite being a deservingly confident jock with beautiful girlfriend Scarlett (Allison Miller), his best friend is squirt nerd Ned Gold (Tyler Steelman), who Mike protects and defends. Sugar-coated? Yes, but don’t worry, it's short lived. Right before a make-or-break basketball game (with the typical convenient/inconvenient “the college talent scout is in the stands watching tonight’s game” scenario), Mike finds out that Scarlett is pregnant. And so their lives are changed forever, as Mike abandon’s the game and his dreams to support his family-on-the-way. Fast forward two decades of regret, and we find verge-of-his-40s Mike (an excellent Matthew Perry), a man riddled with disappointment. Through this, Mike has lost touch with his two high school children, Alex O'Donnell (Sterling Knight) and Maggie O'Donnell (Michelle Trachtenberg), and with his marriage to Scarlett O'Donnell (an equally excellent Leslie Mann). The one light in Mike’s crumbling life is Ned (an always enjoyable Thomas Lennon). Now a multimillionaire from computers (the ultimate revenge of the nerd), Ned takes in his broken friend as they try and pick up the pieces. On a trip to pick up his kids from High School (yes, the same one he went to), Mike runs into an old basketball picture of himself. While reminiscing, a mysterious custodian (Brian Doyle-Murray of the jackass boss in Christmas Vacation (1989) fame) appears, asking Mike if he would like to have a second chance at doing it all again, a no-brainer response follows. Later on, in a scene rifted right out of It's a Wonderful Life (1946), Mike is morphed back into his high school body (Efron again) and then the journey begins. Convincing Ned to enroll him into high school, Mike attempts to use his new/old body to learn about and protect his children, as well as reconnect with his wife. The quest, so to speak, makes for moments of obvious humor and Elektra-like awkwardness, but more importantly, it makes for moments of bare honesty for a family in ruins.
If the film is charged with being a mash-up of It's a Wonderful Life and Freaky Friday (2003), it does so in the best way. The film is not so serious that the audience can’t have fun, but it’s also not just a throwaway effort. Director Burr Steers (who helmed 2002’s Igby Goes Down and wrote the screenplay for 2003’s How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days) skillfully weaves the movie’s themes through a narrative that is never stagnant. In addition, Steers gives this genre a run for its money, providing the actors with more to do and expertly handling the movie’s most sensitive element, Efron. What could have easily gone down the path of Can’t Hardly Wait (1998) or even Varsity Blues (1999) instead becomes a film that transcends typical high school flicks with its bi-generational focus, and while Efron may shine, he doesn’t shine alone. Lennon truly steals every scene he’s in, as always, and he pulls off the uber-nerd just as effortlessly as he does the gay cop on Reno 911!. This is especially rewarding when Ned falls for Principal Jane Masterson (an intriguing Melora Hardin). Mann is radiant and endearing, again as always, developing a much more compelling motherly character than she did in Knocked Up (2007), which she was great in as well. That being said, Perry is the film’s secret weapon. Arguably the most flexible and palatable male Friends alum, Perry provides an incredibly honest portrayal of a weathered soul, weary from becoming a father too soon. While his scenes bookend the film, they have the greatest impact and carry the themes home. To compliment this, Efron does a commendable job channeling the Perryisms of his character’s older self, proving his worth as the central character and holding his own amongst the excellent supporting cast. If this continues, Efron is well on his way to breaking his tweeny mold.
In the end, 17 Again probably won’t change your life, but it might surprise you. For those of you who found the resolution in Juno (2007) a little too convenient and light, this will give you all the reasons you need to avoid unplanned pregnancy, but without the indie shtick (if you even care) and without the Judd Apatow toilet humor (because the cast might suggest that). All in all, this film digs deeper than one would guess, and it just plain works. But it also has Efron, so regardless, girls will walk out in love, and guys just might walk out with a man-crush.
The film begins at the end of the 1980s, where high school senior Mike O'Donnell (Efron, who is no doubt in a familiar role, but wait!) is well on his way to earning a basketball scholarship and a life of glory. Despite being a deservingly confident jock with beautiful girlfriend Scarlett (Allison Miller), his best friend is squirt nerd Ned Gold (Tyler Steelman), who Mike protects and defends. Sugar-coated? Yes, but don’t worry, it's short lived. Right before a make-or-break basketball game (with the typical convenient/inconvenient “the college talent scout is in the stands watching tonight’s game” scenario), Mike finds out that Scarlett is pregnant. And so their lives are changed forever, as Mike abandon’s the game and his dreams to support his family-on-the-way. Fast forward two decades of regret, and we find verge-of-his-40s Mike (an excellent Matthew Perry), a man riddled with disappointment. Through this, Mike has lost touch with his two high school children, Alex O'Donnell (Sterling Knight) and Maggie O'Donnell (Michelle Trachtenberg), and with his marriage to Scarlett O'Donnell (an equally excellent Leslie Mann). The one light in Mike’s crumbling life is Ned (an always enjoyable Thomas Lennon). Now a multimillionaire from computers (the ultimate revenge of the nerd), Ned takes in his broken friend as they try and pick up the pieces. On a trip to pick up his kids from High School (yes, the same one he went to), Mike runs into an old basketball picture of himself. While reminiscing, a mysterious custodian (Brian Doyle-Murray of the jackass boss in Christmas Vacation (1989) fame) appears, asking Mike if he would like to have a second chance at doing it all again, a no-brainer response follows. Later on, in a scene rifted right out of It's a Wonderful Life (1946), Mike is morphed back into his high school body (Efron again) and then the journey begins. Convincing Ned to enroll him into high school, Mike attempts to use his new/old body to learn about and protect his children, as well as reconnect with his wife. The quest, so to speak, makes for moments of obvious humor and Elektra-like awkwardness, but more importantly, it makes for moments of bare honesty for a family in ruins.
If the film is charged with being a mash-up of It's a Wonderful Life and Freaky Friday (2003), it does so in the best way. The film is not so serious that the audience can’t have fun, but it’s also not just a throwaway effort. Director Burr Steers (who helmed 2002’s Igby Goes Down and wrote the screenplay for 2003’s How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days) skillfully weaves the movie’s themes through a narrative that is never stagnant. In addition, Steers gives this genre a run for its money, providing the actors with more to do and expertly handling the movie’s most sensitive element, Efron. What could have easily gone down the path of Can’t Hardly Wait (1998) or even Varsity Blues (1999) instead becomes a film that transcends typical high school flicks with its bi-generational focus, and while Efron may shine, he doesn’t shine alone. Lennon truly steals every scene he’s in, as always, and he pulls off the uber-nerd just as effortlessly as he does the gay cop on Reno 911!. This is especially rewarding when Ned falls for Principal Jane Masterson (an intriguing Melora Hardin). Mann is radiant and endearing, again as always, developing a much more compelling motherly character than she did in Knocked Up (2007), which she was great in as well. That being said, Perry is the film’s secret weapon. Arguably the most flexible and palatable male Friends alum, Perry provides an incredibly honest portrayal of a weathered soul, weary from becoming a father too soon. While his scenes bookend the film, they have the greatest impact and carry the themes home. To compliment this, Efron does a commendable job channeling the Perryisms of his character’s older self, proving his worth as the central character and holding his own amongst the excellent supporting cast. If this continues, Efron is well on his way to breaking his tweeny mold.
In the end, 17 Again probably won’t change your life, but it might surprise you. For those of you who found the resolution in Juno (2007) a little too convenient and light, this will give you all the reasons you need to avoid unplanned pregnancy, but without the indie shtick (if you even care) and without the Judd Apatow toilet humor (because the cast might suggest that). All in all, this film digs deeper than one would guess, and it just plain works. But it also has Efron, so regardless, girls will walk out in love, and guys just might walk out with a man-crush.
3.5/5
S. McSmoke-Smoke
Friday, May 15, 2009
Top Video Games (With a Heavy Emphasis on Story) #15
15. The Longest Journey (1999) – PC
This is by far one of the most elaborate, epic, detailed graphic adventure that I have ever experienced. The Longest Journey was released in 1999 with some modest controversy: some of the content that was cleared for the Great Britain release (the game was developed by a Norwegian company) was censored before the North American release. Oh how times have changed. Most of this censored material is language. The script isn’t particularly profane, but the material within is very mature. Heavy, real-world issues are addressed throughout the gameworld, including genocide, sexual violence, and homosexuality. The Longest Journey never tries to shock you or offend you; it’s not very graphic. But the characters are not afraid to confront problems of a serious nature and it is up to you to respond to them how you see fit.
We are first introduced to April in the world known as Stark. The city looks very much like how you would imagine Los Angeles to look thirty years from now. It doesn’t have the Blade Runner permanent smog layer, but everything about how this civilization lives is just a touch more advanced than it is now. The depicted world is very conceivable, nothing is too far-fetched or absurd and everything is grounded in science and technology. This is important because April is having nightmares where she exists in a much different world, where science is not taken very seriously, and magic reigns as the dominant force uniting the peoples of this world. We find out that this world actually does exist in a parallel universe: many years ago these two worlds were one, but split to separate the followers of magic from the followers of science. Eventually both worlds forgot about each other. April learns that the line between the two worlds is growing thin, causing seepage (thank you Stephen King) from one world to the other. This, of course, causes great chaos as elements of magic leak into Stark and advanced machinery begins to appear in Arcadia (the magic world). April, able to shift between the worlds, is tasked with restoring the balance.
There are so many beautiful landscapes to explore in Arcadia, and your journey into this pristine natural environment implicitly criticises the much uglier world of Stark, which we see as ourselves, and it forces us to ask questions about faith and science, and the sacrifices that we make for one or the other. Where should the line be drawn? Are we forgetting something about ourselves in our quest for ultimate knowledge and reason? And couldn’t we all use a little magic in our lives?
This is by far one of the most elaborate, epic, detailed graphic adventure that I have ever experienced. The Longest Journey was released in 1999 with some modest controversy: some of the content that was cleared for the Great Britain release (the game was developed by a Norwegian company) was censored before the North American release. Oh how times have changed. Most of this censored material is language. The script isn’t particularly profane, but the material within is very mature. Heavy, real-world issues are addressed throughout the gameworld, including genocide, sexual violence, and homosexuality. The Longest Journey never tries to shock you or offend you; it’s not very graphic. But the characters are not afraid to confront problems of a serious nature and it is up to you to respond to them how you see fit.
We are first introduced to April in the world known as Stark. The city looks very much like how you would imagine Los Angeles to look thirty years from now. It doesn’t have the Blade Runner permanent smog layer, but everything about how this civilization lives is just a touch more advanced than it is now. The depicted world is very conceivable, nothing is too far-fetched or absurd and everything is grounded in science and technology. This is important because April is having nightmares where she exists in a much different world, where science is not taken very seriously, and magic reigns as the dominant force uniting the peoples of this world. We find out that this world actually does exist in a parallel universe: many years ago these two worlds were one, but split to separate the followers of magic from the followers of science. Eventually both worlds forgot about each other. April learns that the line between the two worlds is growing thin, causing seepage (thank you Stephen King) from one world to the other. This, of course, causes great chaos as elements of magic leak into Stark and advanced machinery begins to appear in Arcadia (the magic world). April, able to shift between the worlds, is tasked with restoring the balance.
There are so many beautiful landscapes to explore in Arcadia, and your journey into this pristine natural environment implicitly criticises the much uglier world of Stark, which we see as ourselves, and it forces us to ask questions about faith and science, and the sacrifices that we make for one or the other. Where should the line be drawn? Are we forgetting something about ourselves in our quest for ultimate knowledge and reason? And couldn’t we all use a little magic in our lives?
Thursday, May 14, 2009
Top Video Games (With a Heavy Emphasis on Story) #16
16. Chrono Trigger (1995) – SNES
In Chrono Trigger, you lead a group of young adventurers through the fabric of time to prevent a global catastrophe. If this premise sounds redundant, cheesy, or just plain silly, it is. But like so many great pieces of entertainment, the real brilliance here is in the presentation, how the premise is webbed together in a complex string of events that gives you a diverse range of perspectives on the consequences of failure. You travel to horrifying futures, where no plant-life grows, surviving animal life is grossly mutated, and what’s left of mankind is faced with eminent extinction. The message here is surprisingly mature and sincere. Trips to the past show a world that exists in perfect harmony with nature: humans, dinosaurs, and all other life coexist happily. In the present, there is a clear division from nature and many species have gone extinct. This was 1995, and game developers were making very clear comparisons to our world and giving very really warnings about the inevitable consequences of our irresponsibility.
There are a ton of characters, and optional subquests allow you to explore each one in as much depth as you wish. One particularly touching quest involves a robotic character planting, and caring for a forest. I don’t remember what the significance of this forest is, but it is important. The human characters would not live long enough to see the trees fill in the land, so they leave Robo to tend to the earth and return thousands of years later to find their friend rusted into the ground. But a forest now lives where before there was none. The affection and dedication this artificial character exhibits toward the natural world is dichotic. He himself is so very unnatural, manmade. But he understands the significance of his sacrifice and makes it unquestioningly.
The game is also famous for its nearly limitless endings, all depending on your choices along the way. Chrono Trigger is a fun classic, giving the gamer difficult moral choices and many options for progress. This is one of the first examples of this depth of choice in videogame interactive narrative structure.
In Chrono Trigger, you lead a group of young adventurers through the fabric of time to prevent a global catastrophe. If this premise sounds redundant, cheesy, or just plain silly, it is. But like so many great pieces of entertainment, the real brilliance here is in the presentation, how the premise is webbed together in a complex string of events that gives you a diverse range of perspectives on the consequences of failure. You travel to horrifying futures, where no plant-life grows, surviving animal life is grossly mutated, and what’s left of mankind is faced with eminent extinction. The message here is surprisingly mature and sincere. Trips to the past show a world that exists in perfect harmony with nature: humans, dinosaurs, and all other life coexist happily. In the present, there is a clear division from nature and many species have gone extinct. This was 1995, and game developers were making very clear comparisons to our world and giving very really warnings about the inevitable consequences of our irresponsibility.
There are a ton of characters, and optional subquests allow you to explore each one in as much depth as you wish. One particularly touching quest involves a robotic character planting, and caring for a forest. I don’t remember what the significance of this forest is, but it is important. The human characters would not live long enough to see the trees fill in the land, so they leave Robo to tend to the earth and return thousands of years later to find their friend rusted into the ground. But a forest now lives where before there was none. The affection and dedication this artificial character exhibits toward the natural world is dichotic. He himself is so very unnatural, manmade. But he understands the significance of his sacrifice and makes it unquestioningly.
The game is also famous for its nearly limitless endings, all depending on your choices along the way. Chrono Trigger is a fun classic, giving the gamer difficult moral choices and many options for progress. This is one of the first examples of this depth of choice in videogame interactive narrative structure.
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Top Video Games (With a Heavy Emphasis on Story) #17
17. 007: Everything or Nothing (2004) – GC
I was totally blown away when I first plopped this one into my Gamecube. Everything or Nothing is the 5th Pierce Brosnan Bond film that never happened, and it has everything you would expect in a Bond picture. Even the title itself is a nod to EON Productions, the company behind the franchise. The script for the game was written by Bruce Feirstein, who wrote GoldenEye, Tomorrow Never Dies, and The World is Not Enough: this man knows how to write a Bond film. The cast is composed of the staples, Pierce Brosnan, John Cleese, and Judi Dench, but adds to this an all-star lineup of Willem Dafoe, Shannon Elizabeth, Heidi Klum, and franchise favorite Richard Kiel (reprising the Jaws role). All together, this is a winning formula, and it makes for one compelling game experience, with a story that is superior than many bond films (Moonraker I am talking to you).
The game is played in the 3rd person perspective. This is important because you will be doing a lot more than shooting. The story opens with the requisite pre-title sequence and blows up into a typical theme song and dance routine, with music by someone named Mya. Then things really get going. You infiltrate a dam, complete your objective, but then bombs go off and the concrete is ready to burst. Hey, I never said it was original: just fun and very well-suited to the Brosnan Bond. You then have to repel down the dam in a terrifically tense sequence. At the bottom, you grab either your car or a motorbike and race away into a canyon as water rushes behind you and all the walls and buildings you pass crumble and fall as you come under attack by a flurry of anonymous henchmen in a variety of vehicles. It’s a blast. As you progress, there will be opportunities to pilot a helicopter, a remote controlled car, go skydiving for your girlfriend, and, of course, many more car and motorbike chases, the pinnacle of which is a high speed pursuit around heavy traffic on the Pontchartrain Bridge.
There is so much excitement here, you never know what you are going to do next, but it’s always totally over-the-top and endlessly fun.
I was totally blown away when I first plopped this one into my Gamecube. Everything or Nothing is the 5th Pierce Brosnan Bond film that never happened, and it has everything you would expect in a Bond picture. Even the title itself is a nod to EON Productions, the company behind the franchise. The script for the game was written by Bruce Feirstein, who wrote GoldenEye, Tomorrow Never Dies, and The World is Not Enough: this man knows how to write a Bond film. The cast is composed of the staples, Pierce Brosnan, John Cleese, and Judi Dench, but adds to this an all-star lineup of Willem Dafoe, Shannon Elizabeth, Heidi Klum, and franchise favorite Richard Kiel (reprising the Jaws role). All together, this is a winning formula, and it makes for one compelling game experience, with a story that is superior than many bond films (Moonraker I am talking to you).
The game is played in the 3rd person perspective. This is important because you will be doing a lot more than shooting. The story opens with the requisite pre-title sequence and blows up into a typical theme song and dance routine, with music by someone named Mya. Then things really get going. You infiltrate a dam, complete your objective, but then bombs go off and the concrete is ready to burst. Hey, I never said it was original: just fun and very well-suited to the Brosnan Bond. You then have to repel down the dam in a terrifically tense sequence. At the bottom, you grab either your car or a motorbike and race away into a canyon as water rushes behind you and all the walls and buildings you pass crumble and fall as you come under attack by a flurry of anonymous henchmen in a variety of vehicles. It’s a blast. As you progress, there will be opportunities to pilot a helicopter, a remote controlled car, go skydiving for your girlfriend, and, of course, many more car and motorbike chases, the pinnacle of which is a high speed pursuit around heavy traffic on the Pontchartrain Bridge.
There is so much excitement here, you never know what you are going to do next, but it’s always totally over-the-top and endlessly fun.
Saturday, May 9, 2009
Movie Review: Star Trek (2009)
Star Trek (2009)
I would classify my relationship with Star Trek as casual. I recently watched some of the trailers of the old Star Trek films, and I was instantly filled with fond memories. I’ve seen most of them: I, IV-VI, and, after they couldn’t be bothered to number them, First Contact, and Nemesis. I never liked the first one, and First Contact is by far the best, but there is something uncannily fun about all the old ones. I even really like part V, widely considered the worst of the series, which opens with Kirk free-climbing El Capitan, and ending with a search for God (seeing as how they had already searched for, and found, Spock). So I’m not a Trekkie, or even a devoted fan, but I am familiar enough with the mythos to understand the significance and history of the relationships and characters that are on display in J.J. Abrams reboot of the Star Trek franchise.
I had very low expectations coming into this movie. For whatever reason, the way the trailer was edited together gave off all the signs of a bad movie: tripe dialogue, overacting, and senseless but pretty action scenes. Well I was fooled. There is actually a good movie behind it all. Not great, but good. The story is compelling and well-orchestrated. The acting is very strong. And the action is fast-paced, tightly choreographed, and unexpectedly inspired. We could lose the scene where Kirk drives an antique Corvette off of a cliff and not suffer any narrative deficiency, but all that really matters is that I had a really great time at the movies this week.
And now for a brief intermission:
3 Things Star Trek Taught Me About Black Holes (Which I’m Pretty Sure Are Wrong)
1. Black holes can, in fact, emit sound.
2. Black holes are visible to the naked eye. I was always told this was impossible because black holes consume everything, including light, making them invisible. I’m going to trust the spacemen from the future and guess that the present-day rocket scientists are wrong.
3. Black holes are somehow able to simultaneously destroy an entire planet, while providing a wormhole through which numerous spacecrafts can travel unharmed. Who knew?
2. Black holes are visible to the naked eye. I was always told this was impossible because black holes consume everything, including light, making them invisible. I’m going to trust the spacemen from the future and guess that the present-day rocket scientists are wrong.
3. Black holes are somehow able to simultaneously destroy an entire planet, while providing a wormhole through which numerous spacecrafts can travel unharmed. Who knew?
One of the big questions everyone asks is how the new actors fill the familiar roles. The good news is that everybody is perfectly suited to their parts, and the performances are far better than I was expecting, especially Chris Pine, as James Kirk, who failed to sell me in the film’s trailer. He earned his keep. Kirk had character issues that left me unimpressed, but Pine's grasp of the role was very satisfying. Zachary Quinto, as Spock, was enjoyable, as was Carl Urban’s Dr. Leonard McCoy: my favorite character from the old movies. No one will ever own the role more than DeForest Kelley, but I was very pleased that a man best known for fighting Vikings took such care to get his role just right. No one is better suited to inheret the role of Scotty than Simon Peg; the man is hysterical in every scene. One of the great discoveries of the film is Anton Yelchin, playing Chekov. The kid is very funny, laying on a thick Russian accent, and I look forward to seeing more of him in future installments. Finally, I always love Bruce Greenwood’s work, and it was nice to see him here in a big role.
The characters all handle the dialogue really well. The film finds the perfect level of camp, enabling us to enjoy even the silliest moments. This is good. The only way to make a Star Trek movie well is to unabashedly embrace the camp that will forever be a part of the franchise’s legacy.
There are a handful of problems I had with the movie, although I refuse to complain about the science because where’s the fun in that. Many characters fall into one position or another unnaturally. Scotty, after being found abandoned on an ice planet, takes over the Enterprise’s engineering so suddenly and unquestioningly (we only just met the guy) that it leaves you befuddled, like a step was missing somewhere. He must be replacing somebody, but we never get to meet this other mystery officer. Kirk seems to always have horseshoes up his ass; no matter how offensive he becomes to everyone around him, he somehow still manages to find himself in positions of authority. This is also the major flaw of the film. For 90% of the movie’s running time, Kirk is completely unlikeable. He is offensively smug, he looks down on everybody, showing no respect to authority or his friends and shipmates, and over the course of the movie he never really earns enough respect from the crew, or us the audience, to justify this character hitch. We are left with a protagonist that we are supposed to care about, and we do simply because he is Kirk, but it never feels wholly authentic.
Abrams made a smart move, rewriting the rules using a trick he picked up from Lost: time travel. This way he can do whatever the hell he likes to the Star Trek mythos of his film and not commit sacrilege against the past films or offend the diehard fans, because that other universe remains untouched. Nothing that has already happened can be modified. Is it brilliant or a cheap attempt at self-protection?
The final verdict: don’t bother with Wolverine, this is the real start of the summer season. Abrams’ Star Trek is far from a masterpiece, but it is thrilling, action-packed entertainment that everone will enjoy, filled to the brim with all the nostalgia a fan could hope for, and free of franchise or character desecration. The next question is: how many sequels before they save the humpback whales or sing campfire songs in Yosemite National Park? My guess is four.
Professor P
Thursday, May 7, 2009
Top Video Games (With a Heavy Emphasis on Story) #18
18. Star Wars: X-Wing Alliance (1999) – PC
Star Wars: Tie Fighter may be the most innovative game in this Star Wars space-simulator trilogy, but for my money, Star Wars: X-Wing Alliance is the most polished, most fun, and most compelling in the narrative department. You are the youngest child in the Azzameen family, the highly respected owners of a trading company. Your character is on his way to becoming a skilled pilot, and soon qualifies to fly for the family company. If there was any doubt that you would make an ace pilot, look no further than your first name, which is also Ace.
Ironic alliterations aside, you spend the first few missions transporting goods and cargo across the galaxy, and perform various odd jobs, such as reconnaissance and escort. This may sound dull, but it allows you to get acquainted with the specifics of your spaceship. This is not a space-shooter, it is a simulator first. You will have to adjust and balance your craft’s available power between your engines, shields, and weapons. If there is no threat than you should put all your power into your engines, allowing you to travel faster. If you come under attack, you should reroute energy to your shields to protect yourself, and to your weapons for offense. Careful though, if you take too much energy away from your engines your slower rate of travel will leave you more susceptible to incoming fire. This balance is the core of the gameplay.
Just when you are starting to make a name for yourself in the company, your shipping yard comes under attack from the Empire, many of your family members are killed in the escape to safety, and the rest are scattered around the galaxy. Ace is on his own. Inevitably, you sign up with the rebellion to revenge the attack on your family. This adventure takes you through the rest of the game, eventually ending up in the battle over Endor where you must fly into the reassembled Death Star and take it out with Lando himself.
The whole package is a thrilling, cinematic experience. The dogfights are a blast, although not as simple as you may be used to. You will find yourself getting caught up in familiar Star Wars themes and stories, while you try desperately to bring your family, and the company back together. It’s both personal and epic. Why have we not had another one of these since 1999?
Star Wars: Tie Fighter may be the most innovative game in this Star Wars space-simulator trilogy, but for my money, Star Wars: X-Wing Alliance is the most polished, most fun, and most compelling in the narrative department. You are the youngest child in the Azzameen family, the highly respected owners of a trading company. Your character is on his way to becoming a skilled pilot, and soon qualifies to fly for the family company. If there was any doubt that you would make an ace pilot, look no further than your first name, which is also Ace.
Ironic alliterations aside, you spend the first few missions transporting goods and cargo across the galaxy, and perform various odd jobs, such as reconnaissance and escort. This may sound dull, but it allows you to get acquainted with the specifics of your spaceship. This is not a space-shooter, it is a simulator first. You will have to adjust and balance your craft’s available power between your engines, shields, and weapons. If there is no threat than you should put all your power into your engines, allowing you to travel faster. If you come under attack, you should reroute energy to your shields to protect yourself, and to your weapons for offense. Careful though, if you take too much energy away from your engines your slower rate of travel will leave you more susceptible to incoming fire. This balance is the core of the gameplay.
Just when you are starting to make a name for yourself in the company, your shipping yard comes under attack from the Empire, many of your family members are killed in the escape to safety, and the rest are scattered around the galaxy. Ace is on his own. Inevitably, you sign up with the rebellion to revenge the attack on your family. This adventure takes you through the rest of the game, eventually ending up in the battle over Endor where you must fly into the reassembled Death Star and take it out with Lando himself.
The whole package is a thrilling, cinematic experience. The dogfights are a blast, although not as simple as you may be used to. You will find yourself getting caught up in familiar Star Wars themes and stories, while you try desperately to bring your family, and the company back together. It’s both personal and epic. Why have we not had another one of these since 1999?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
