Wherein I Rant About the World

Adventure Time Recap - "Lemonhope" Pt. 1 & 2

noreply@blogger.com (Zul) — Mon, 10 Mar 2014 19:03:00 +0000

This week's Adventure Time brings us the epic saga of a young but reluctant hero destined for great things. Also, he's a lemon. Spoilers to follow.

We open with a dream sequence, with Lemonhope as a cherub, leaving a monochrome bird's nest and flying through darkness, until he finally reaches a red door. He hears a knocking, only to wake up and find that it's time for school.

We last saw Badlemonnohope (A.K.A. Lemonhope) in Too Old, where Princess Bubblegum and Finn found the young boy imprisoned, and broke him out. They managed to escape, with the help of the rest of Castle Lemongrab's citizens, but Lemongrab was very displeased, and wound up eating what remained of Lemongrab 2. Don't worry, though, he was still alive in there.

In this episode, Princess Bubblegum shows Lemonhope a propaganda film released by Lemongrab. Conditions have never been great in Lemongrab, but things seem to have gotten… worse. The film (titled "Hello! And keep away from Castle Lemongrab!") paints a very bleak picture of the totalitarian city-state (Lemongrab actually calls it that) the Earldom of Lemongrab has become. We also find out that Lemongrab 2 is totally still alive… Inside of the Earldom's fat ruler. It seems that "since they've gotten rid of Hope," Lemongrab has gone even more completely power mad, and Lemongrab 2 reaches out of Lemongrab, screaming that Lemonhope needs to return to Castle Lemongrab and save the Earldom.

The film ends, and Princess Bubblegum notices that Lemonhope hasn't been paying attention, instead doodling a picture of himself. She then tries to see how Lemonhope's empathy has been developing, giving him two cupcakes, and asking if he'll share one of them with Finn (oh, yeah, Finn's there too. He doesn't have much to do in this episode either, but that's fine, he takes up very little screentime and actually does things when he's on screen). Lemonhope licks his thumb, and sticks it in each cupcake, saying that Finn can get his own cupcakes. It seems that, while he's not completely off the rails, he's definitely still a part of the Lemon family.

I want to take a brief sidebar here. Princess Bubblegum says that they need to take a more hands on approach, and sends Finn off, yelling at him to make sure he read his Geometry homework. Has… Has Finn been going to school this whole time? Granted, it's a one-off gag, but Adventure Time's one-off gags often have meaning, and while this seems like the first time I can think of that we've ever seen a classroom in Ooo, is it possible that Finn's being taught by Peebles?

In any case, PB and Lemonhope travel to the outskirts of Castle Lemongrab, and we see that it now appears as an enormous prison. PB and Lemonhope use cloaking devices, since tensions have become heightened between the Candy Kingdom and Lemongrab, and new pacts and treaties prevent PB from getting very close to it. We see an escape attempt, as a random lemon flies over the walls, before a spotlight hits it, and it is picked up by a bird, and tossed into the center of the castle. "I AM GOING TO EAT YOOOOOU!!!" We hear Lemongrab scream. Then… Surprisingly disturbing screams of pain, which eventually turn into silence. "I DID IT!"

Lemonhope is supposed to return to Castle Lemongrab and save them all someday, but he doesn't want to. Lemonhope wants nothing but freedom, and being told what to do, even if that means saving his people, infringes on that freedom. Princess Bubblegum tells him that attitude is unacceptable, but before she realizes her unfortunate choice of words, Lemonhope disappears, running away from her.

We cut to an island surrounded by sand, where a (now naked) Lemonhope dances around with his harp and flute, finally free. He sings a short song, before finding a burning town, also on the island, which has just been pillaged by sand pirates. He sees the sand pirate ship leaving the dock, and decides that kind of ship must come with a lot of freedom, so he manages to stowaway.

The cargo hold of the ship has tons of limes in it, which Lemonhope finds hilarious ("It takes all kinds, I guess!"). He plays the harp for some rats, which then form a blanket over him. He falls asleep, only to be awoken by the sound of something happening overhead. A box falls from a shelf as the ship sways, and hits him on the head. When he wakes up, the ship has wrecked, and there's no one to be seen for miles.

We're treated to another dream sequence, this time with a "very free" Lemonhope-horse walking along, dragging a Lemongrab 2 behind him, who is begging him to stop and help. The Lemonhope-horse steps in some gum, only to find that it's a little Princess Bubblegum, who screams at him that he's UNACCCEPPTTAAAABLLLLLLEEEEEEE!

Back in the waking world, we see that Lemonhope is now disturbingly malnourished, having eaten dozens and dozens of limes. Clearly a significant amount of time has passed. He's run out of limes, so he decides that he has freedom to go find some water. There's a single cloud floating high above him, but it's not looking like rain. He journeys out into the desert. More time passes, and he's shriveled up, clearly on his last leg. He finally stops moving, and his head catches fire from the heat.

Lemonhope is saved by a mysterious man who appears out of nowhere, and uses a cloud in a bottle to rehydrate Lemonhope. The man introduces himself as Phlannel Boxingday, who has been watching Lemonhope for some time from his floating cloud trawler. He thought it looked like Lemonhope could use some help, so he came down (why he didn't do that earlier… Anyone's guess). He says that Lemonhope is free to come join him for a while to make his journey easier. Or not.

Lemonhope agrees, and the two take off. Before long though, the two find themselves beng chased by a Greedlard, a giant grey bird head monster thing. Imagine if Mr. Saturn from Earthbound were a bird monster. It's kinda like that.

Lemonhope manages to charm the beast with his harp skills, and the two kill it by leading it straight into a rock pillar. Lemonhope screams when he sees other lemon-people falling out of the beast's mouth, and screams at Phlannel to stop the cloud. When they get to the ground, Phlannel shows him that it isn't people, it's just "dosh."

Phlannel makes a living by killing Greedlards, and keeping their dosh for himself. He tells Lemonhope that he's free to join him and make things easier, and Lemonhope accepts.

The third dream sequences is of a marionette Lemonhope being held up by metal chains. As he walks forward, he sees Lemongrab eating a cow. Lemongrab vomits more chains towards him, and the cow screams to run away, but Lemonhope is dragged toward Lemongrab, and when he falls and looks up to the sky, he sees himself as the one pulling the puppet strings.

Lemonhope wakes up, and goes above deck. He tells Phlannel that he had another nightmare, and asks why he can't forget about his people. Phlannel tells him that while he is technically free to help the lemon people or leave them, he feels guilty about leaving them as they are. That makes him a prisoner in his mind. Lemonhope says that's what PB always told him, but that he never listened, and Phlannel says Lemonhope is a doer, not a listener, and had to learn with his hands.

So, what we've got here are several parallels between Phlannel and PB from the beginning, and the fact that Phlannel only intervened when Lemonhope really was about to die. This leads me to wonder whether Phlannel was working for PB (or even was PB in disguise), and whether this whole adventure was the "hands on" learning experience PB mentioned toward the beginning. Plus, Phlannel is pink, PB is pink. Phlannel even parrots PB's sentiments from the beginning, and says that he can't help Lemonhope beyond taking him right to the outskirts of Castle Lemongrab (near where PB took him at the beginning), due to pacts and treaties. Think about it, is all I'm saying.

Lemonhope manages to sneak into Castle Lemongrab, but is quickly confronted by Lemongrab. Lemongrab reveals that he has earplugs in, and that Lemonhope's plan to play the harp to defeat Lemongrab won't work. Lemongrab 2, still alive inside the fat Lemongrab's stomach, hears this, and reaches out of Lemongrab's mouth, pulling the earplugs out. As Lemongrab panics, Lemonhope plays his harp… and Lemongrab explodes.

We get one more dream sequence, as the cherub Lemonhope from the start climbs stair steps (M.C. Escher style), before returning to the bird's nest the episode started in, now in color.

Finn plays the flute as Princess Bubblegum sews up Lemongrab 1, saying that although he's pretty Frankenstein-ey right now, he should eventually go back to normal (as in "Too Young" style Lemongrab). PB asks Lemonhope if he'd like to stay in Castle Lemongrab as a champion, but he tells her that he really only came back so he could stop thinking about all of them, and that he'd come back when he was tired of being free. Maybe a thousand years or so.

Princess Bubblegum and Finn are both shocked that Lemonhope decided to leave. PB says that she even had a song prepared to sing about Lemonhope staying, and Finn convinces her to sing it anyway.

Bubblegum sings over the last scene of the episode. A very old Lemonhope walks through familiar areas. Finn and Jake's treehouse is now miles high, far above the clouds. We see a ruined city reminiscent of one from the great mushroom war, but on closer examination, it's a much more technologically advanced version of the Candy Kingdom.

After walking through those ruins, he makes his way to Castle Lemongrab, which now looks… Exactly the same. He wanders through the old castle, to a room which PB had prepared for him, climbs into bed, and closes his eyes.

The Good:

Oh, geez, what didn't work this week? This is the kind of episode that makes me really love Adventure Time. It's unabashedly silly, but there's real emotional depth to the whole thing. Lemonhope's other episode, "Too Old," didn't really give him much of a personality, but he really gets a chance to shine here. He's given a distinct personality from the Lemongrabs, but he definitely still has some similarities to them.

It's funny when it wants to be funny. It's dark when it wants to be dark. It's really disturbing when it wants to be disturbing. The second and third dream sequences especially are really uncomfortable, which is exactly the feeling anything Lemongrab related should have.

By far my favorite part of this episode though was the last scene. As far as I can remember, this is the first time we've gotten hints at a cyclical nature to the world of Adventure Time. The past world, the world of Humans, got very advanced and then undid themselves, and now this hints at a similar fate for Ooo somewhere in the future. Now, we really don't know how long Lemonhope was gone for, it may have been a thousand years like he referenced while leaving, or it may have been ten thousand, either way we've now seen that the Candy Kingdom can't last forever.

The Bad:

I really have very little to say against this episode. If I had to nitpick, perhaps I'd say that the first and last dream sequences seemed pointless, but even that really is a nitpick.

Title cards taken from the Adventure Time wiki.

Adventure Time Recap - "Bad Timing"

noreply@blogger.com (Zul) — Mon, 03 Mar 2014 20:06:00 +0000

Tonight's episode was a little bit... Weird. Even by Adventure Time standards. Spoilers to follow.

All right, I'm going to be up front about this, I do not like Lumpy Space Princess. I have no fondness for her whatsoever. I think she is an obnoxious character to watch, and I understand that's the point, but that doesn't change the fact that I don't like watching her. I'm sorry, I know she has her fans, I'm just definitely not one of them.

That said, while tonight's episode was an LSP-centric one, this was by no means a bad episode. In fact, it was a good example of the increasingly dark tone Adventure Time has been developing over time.

The first thing you'll notice about "Bad Timing" is the bizarre border onscreen during the episode's duration.

I honestly have no idea what to make of this. I'll touch on it again in a bit.

The episode opens with Finn and Jake (again, bit parts this week, but I didn't mind since they really took up very little screen time beyond a callback to last week's episode) and several other Candy Kingdom residents watching as Princess Bubblegum unveils her latest invention, a psuedo time-travel device which scans the molecules within it, and then rearranges them to a previous state... Or something. The end result is that everything in the time bubble is reset to a previous state (ignoring the horrifying screams of the test creatures which were being disintegrated).

Jake argues that this isn't really time travel (and that Ice King did it better last week), but Bubblegum tells him that for all intents and purposes, it still works like one. It's at this point LSP, who had been lurking outside a window, comes in and starts flipping out, telling Bubblegum that she needs to reset time back to a time when Brad still loved her. PB tells her that's not how the machine works, and LSP flips out, screaming that PB is a tramp who doesn't know what it's like since everyone in the Candy Kingdom loves her. All right, all right, she doesn't use the word tramp, she says... I don't know, but it sure did sound like tramp.

Any way, LSP gets depressed, and heads to a bar. While presumably trying to get drunk, LSP runs into an old High School classmate, who she once called Ugly Johnny.

LSP has discovered that Ugly Johnny is no longer Ugly, and starts flirting with him. She asks what he's doing in town, and he tells her he has some sort of business meeting with Princess Bubblegum, where he's trying to sell to her. She asks where he's staying, and he says that he's subletting an apartment. "Talk is cheap, Johnny. You should take me there."

You know... Sometimes I really wonder whether Adventure Time was originally intended to be an Adult Swim show, before getting knocked down into "kids" programming.

Any way, the two hit it off, and LSP spends the night at Brad's house... On the couch.

The next morning we totally get a one-night-stand fakeout, before revealing that LSP was there after all. Looks like she's got a new boyfriend! Awwww.

Johnny heads off to his business meeting with PB, which he nails because of the "good vibes" LSP was sending him. (I'd make a joke that she was sexting him, but there's enough actually innuendo in this episode that I reeeeally don't need to add any.) Johnny and PB set up a dinner meeting to hammer out the details... But when LSP finds out she isn't invited, she snaps.

Johnny heads to his business meeting, only for LSP to STRIKE!

And by strike, I don't mean anything cutesy, I mean she throws a molotov into a window of the palace, and sends a truck speeding through the front door. Princess Bubblegum tells Johnny that she's off to defend the castle, and that he should hide under the table, and chew the cyanide-laced gum stuck to the bottom if he hears anyone come near.

That's not a joke. That's a scene that really happens.

While Princess Bubblegum is distracted, LSP bursts into the dinner room with the time-travel device from earlier, having completely snapped, and tells Johnny that she's going to transport him back in time to a point where he still loved her, so they could have another chance. Before he can react, she shoves the device onto his head, and disintegrates it, before doing the same with his body.

LSP rushes back to Johnny's house to search for him, only to find that he's not there. Princess Bubblegum shows up again, and tells her that she used the device improperly, and that his molecules were merely torn apart and never reassembled. LSP asks where Johnny went, and Princess Bubblegum tells her that she just doesn't know.

Jeez. That's dark.

It does get a little better. I missed this myself, but browsing the Adventure Time subreddit I learned that apparently once disintegrated, Johnny does reappear in the border surrounding the screen. So, that's the purpose that served, I guess.

The Good:

I liked a lot about this episode. I loved the ethically void route they've been taking with Princess Bubblegum lately, and the cyanide gum might be one of my favorite gags ever.

Despite being an LSP hater, she was totally tolerable this episode, and watching her become the kids show version of an axe murderer was a lot of fun.

The adult jokes in the episode were pretty funny in a "how is a Cartoon Network series getting away with an episode where a character says something very similiar to "tramp" and "skank," goes to a bar, and then has a drunken one night stand?" kind of way.

The Bad:

I hated that border. It served very little purpose, and I would much have preferred the even darker ending which left Johnny's fate ambiguous, with implied death. I have no idea whether this strange world filled with flat creatures will show up again, maybe we'll see more of Johnny, but I thought the border was a gimmick which detracted a lot more than it added.

Screengrabs taken from the Adventure Time wiki.

Adventure Time Recaps - "Betty"

noreply@blogger.com (Zul) — Mon, 24 Feb 2014 20:00:00 +0000

So, I just finished watching tonight's Adventure Time episode "Betty." THAT HAPPENED. Totally mathematical spoilers incoming.

Jeez, that was a lot of stuff to process. Let's do a little recap of the episode, shall we? So, the episode opens in Wizard City with the wizards involved with some sort of mysterious ritual which has been going on in the background for, like, ever, finally performing the ritual... Summoning an ancient evil called Bella Noche.

This guy.

So the summoning ritual takes place right as Ice King shows up to try and be included in the wizard stuff happening, and Bella Noche is freed, only to reveal itself as a creature of anti-magic, who absorbs (or negates?) all the magic in the area... Including the Ice King's crown.

As a result...

Yeah, Simon is totally back. So Simon escapes Bella Noche as he begins destroying Wizard City, and heads back to the Ice Kingdom via a magic carpet he stole from Marceline's Ex, Ash. Once he gets back to the Ice Kingdom, he not only reveals another room behind the room of repressed memories (or whatever Ice King called it back in "I Remember You") but calls Marceline up and tells her to bring Hambo.

We get a little bit of flashback filling in any new viewers about the Simon and Marcy dynamic, and then we get treated to Marceline (who was wearing the very same outfit she wore as a child) and Finn and Jake (who do nothing in this episode, not sure why they're even here) travelling to a now melting Ice Kingdom, where we finally get a heartwarming reunion between Simon and Marcy.

...Which is then interrupted by the information that SIMON IS DYING. YEAH.

Luckily, it turns out that Simon just happens to have created a time machine which he can use (by consuming Hambo, which provides a link to the past) to create a portal to say one last goodbye, and apologize to Betty

...And then Betty jumps through the time portal, into the land of Ooo. And then Simon collapses. Betty decides that the only course of action is to destroy Bella Noche, fix the crown, and return Simon to being the Ice King until she can find a method to return him to normal and keep him alive. She pulls him onto the carpet, much to his protestations, and flies all the way back to Bella Noche. (Notice how I didn't mention Finn and Jake doing anything this episode? That's because they do nothing this episode.)

...And then she manages to do what no one else could do, jumps right on into the protective shell Bella Noche has going on, punches out the anti-wizard inside.

The whole thing explodes restoring the magic to everyone in Wizard City, and healing Simon... As the Ice King.

The episode ends with Ice King talking to (a kidnapped) Muscle Princess, telling her that the girl of his dreams saved him during his blackout day... Only to be lost as a casualty of Bella Noche's destruction.

AND THEN WE ZOOM OUT AND BETTY IS TOTALLY STILL ALIVE AND SHE FLIES OFF!

...And all of that (plus a bunch of jokes which I didn't even mention, including a subplot involving Death following Simon) happened in 11 minutes.

Look, I really like Adventure Time, I've really come around on it, and they do some absolutely excellent work within the (admittedly difficult) 11 minute format. I can name half a dozen episodes which workextremely well within that restrained time, including the past two Simon episodes, "I Remember You," and "Simon and Marcy," as well as the excellent recent episode "Blade of Grass."

Unfortunately... This just isn't an example of that. This really should have been decompressed into multiple episodes, even if they took up an entire season (as Adventure Time often does).

As it stands... It's just too much stuff packed into the format, and it feels like a lot of things don't get the gravity they should. Simon and Marceline being reunited really should have been its own episode, and as it is, the way they just glaze over what should be the most powerful reunion the show has ever had really bothered me. Marceline is really just a supporting character in this episode, and that just isn't right.

I know Adventure Time rarely does two parters (although Holly Jolly Secrets Pt. 1&2, Incendium/Hot to the Touch, and The Lich/Finn the Human/Jake the Dog has proved they aren't opposed to the idea), but even if this were stretched over multiple episodes in a season, and had Simon just in the show in the background in some capacity, that would have been better.

The Adventure Time fan in me really loved seeing a lot of the stuff which happens in this episode, and Betty being introduced as a real agent in the story is really exciting, but I felt burned by the lack of focus, and the way the episode simply has to keep moving because of the amount of content packed into it.

Still, even with that complaint, this was a really fun episode as a fan of the series. We got to see a lot of stuff from previous episodes finally pay off, and it's left us with some interesting places to go in the future. I'm really excited to see where they eventually take this all.

(Screengrabs taken from the Adventure Time wiki.)

The Fourth Annual Wherin I Rant Awards - 2013

noreply@blogger.com (Zul) — Tue, 31 Dec 2013 08:00:00 +0000

Welp, it's that time of the year again, and once again I've brought together lists of my favorite games and movies and miscellany that I really really liked, ordered them from least-awesome to most-awesome, and written some words about each of them. Now, you get to read those words! Hurrah!

Top 5 Games of 2013

All right, let's get this out of the way. There are some pretty big gaps in my game library this year. I just didn't have the time or money to play everything that I would have liked to. Now, I played some pretty great games, and I've got a list of those here, but there are some things which I've either not touched, or only played a little bit of from this year. I have no doubt that Ni No Kuni, Zelda, Rogue Legacy, GTA 5, Tomb Raider, and quite a few other games are absolutely great, and would probably have pushed this into a proper top ten list had I played them. As it is, I just haven't played them, or at least haven't played enough of them. So, here's a list of some of what I did play, and really liked.

5. Saints Row IV

You know what's awesome? The Saints Rows franchise. This is a franchise that, until late last year, had completely passed me by. I remember hearing some really good things about Saints Row 2 way back when, but never picked it up. Then, I remember back in late 2011 hearing some amazing things about its sequel, but was so utterly consumed by Skyrim at that time that I never got into that, either.

So late last year I finally picked up Saints Row: The Third only to find that, yeah, it's an amazing game. Saints Row: The Third, while not exactly as packed with content as I'd like an open-world game to be, has one of the funniest campaigns of all time, and goes up there, in my opinion, with the funniest games of all time, like Psychonauts and Portal.

Then halfway through this year, I got Saints Row 2 through a Humble Bundle, and found out that, once again, that game was amazing too! I played that co-op, and while it isn't as overtly funny or well written as The Third, it's much more feature rich, and is a very good game in its own right, dealing with an overall more serious tone than the third one..

So of course, as a part of the Steam Sale this year, I had to pick up Saints Row IV. Saints Row IV, or as I like to call it "The Adventures of Gimp-Suit-Uncle-Sam and Lazy Goku," because that's how I played it, is a great game. There are some things about it which bother me, particularly the eternal twilight and occasional deliberate graphical glitches spoiling the look of an otherwise great looking game, which might hold it back from being quite as much fun as the second one was, but it still brought the excellent writing and video game satire of the third game, along with a slightly darker tone.

Plus, the game switched gameplay focus from being a satire of Grand Theft Auto, into being something more along the lines of Crackdown, Prototype, or InFamous. I. Love. InFamous. This game playing somewhat like InFamous means I love this game.

I also just want to mention, this is a game that gets co-op right. Don't give me your seperate co-op campaign. Don't drop me into the world with a friend and tell me I can't do any of the missions or side activities. Just put me in the world with a friend, and let me play. This game does that, and that makes it all the more fun.

Saints Row IV is awesome, and I haven't even finished it yet.

4. Fire Emblem: Awakening

I want to get this out of the way: Purely in terms of gameplay alone, this is the absolute best game released in 2013. Without regards to characters, soundtrack, story, or any of that, and only talking about actually playing a game, this game is very, very close to being perfect.

And, don't get me wrong, the rest of the game is pretty great too. The characters are memorable (Lucina might be one of my favorite characters of the year), the art is great, the story is very by the numbers, but not bad. Those things weren't the draw, they were just icing on a very, very tasty cake.

Between Fire Emblem, SMT4, Zelda, Animal Crossing, and Pokemon, this game very nearly turned into "my top five 3DS game of 2013." Astonishingly, this year the 3DS went from being kind of a joke into becoming what I can say with confidence is my absolute favorite handheld of all time. The catalog this thing has gotten over the past twelve months is incredible, and I just want to make sure everyone knows that now is the time to buy.

Fire Emblem is brutally unforgiving on its higher difficulties, and it's some of the most fun I've had playing a video game in 2013, beating out a lot of quality experiences. This game is absolutely worth buying a 3DS for.

3. Pokemon X

But yeah, there was that other 3DS game that I liked just a little bit more.

POKEMON IS BACK! YAAAAAAAAY!

I was, overall, pretty disappointed with Pokemon White back in 2011. I respected the fact that the game tried to tell a more nuanced story, and actually did it surprisingly well until the last hour or so, but I thought the new Pokemon designs were astoundingly awful, and the lack of old favorites to fall back on, while not inherently a bad idea, bummed me out since I only liked a very very small handful of the new designs (Bisharp and me are gonna go wreck things).

But I'm still a huge fan of Pokemon, and so when X and Y came out as the first 3D Pokemon games, I was still there day one, unsure if the magic could ever be recaptured, but willing to give it one more try. And, somewhat surprisingly, Pokemon X was great. I even think there's an argument to be made that it's the best Pokemon game of all time, though it's not an argument I would personally make (Soul Silver is the best one, for the record).

The new designs are almost all terrific. The 3D battles look great. The unique animations for the Pokemon were impressively broad. The new minigames like Pokemon-Amie worked well, and Super Training finally means I don't have to spend countless hours EV-Training the perfect Pokemon.

The improvements made to multiplayer alone made this a terrific experience. I was caught up in the zeitgeist of playing at launch, and I had tons of friends from all over the world playing with me. Having a friends list at the bottom screen at all times, and being able to send short messages, or ask to trade or battle with them at a moment's notice made the game exponentially more fun.

But not only did the internet work, the game was a blast. Although the game didn't tell even a story up to the standards of White (which was unfortunate), story has never ever been the draw to Pokemon, and, while the game was far too easy, I still had a blast with it, and sunk nearly 100 hours into it during October.

While there are probably other, technically better games that I played this year, there probably isn't a game this year I had more outright fun with than Pokemon X. It's a great game whether it's your first Pokemon experience, or you've been playing for over a decade like I have. Another one worth buying a 3DS for.

2. The Last of Us

All right, enough of that fun stuff, it's time to talk about what video games are really about-- Soul crushing depression.

Congratulations, Naughty Dog! You finally made a game I actually liked! The Last of Us is an amazing game. Every single thing about this game is good. The visuals are jaw-dropping, pushing the Playstation 3 to its limits as a system. The gameplay is some of the best stealth I've ever seen, with intelligent choices made every step of the way, and since it's a stealth game, you don't have to put up with hours and hours of awful, awful shooting like certain other, more Indiana-Jones-Esque Naughty Dog games.

And the story... My god. The one thing I can say for Naughty Dog, and has been true since Uncharted 2, is that their games are cinematic like no others. Uncharted 2 looked like a movie. The action was impressive, and didn't feel like something you would play. The Last of Us, from its heartbreaking opening moments, is absolutely that.

The Last of Us has twists, and turns. Every time I thought I knew where it was going, it threw me for a loop, but not in the way many video game stories do. Even as someone who absolutely loves video games for the way they can tell stories, I can admit there are very few games with stories that can stand alongside the best of other mediums. Mass Effect is always the example that jumps to mind. And yet, The Last of Us is absolutely on that list. The ending will leave you shocked, and emotionally destroyed, but not in the way you'd expect.

I don't care how burned out you are on zombie games, if you haven't played The Last of Us, you are missing out on one of the best games of the generation.

So what beats it?

1. BioShock Infinite

OF COURSE IT WAS BIOSHOCK INFINITE

BioShock Infinite is a masterpiece. Let me be clear: Every. Single. Thing. About. This. Game. Works.

From its opening moments, BioShock defies any expectations you might have after the first one. It is just such an incredibly great game, I don't know how I can even talk about it. I mean, to start off with, it's one of the best shooters out there. But I mean, even beyond being an incredibly solid shooter, everything else! The art is gorgeous! Look at it!

Look at it!

And the sound! Speaking of best soundtrack of the year, the sound design is a stroke of brilliance! The way this game uses music, the way it works it into the story in the most brilliant ways... I can't even tell you! Just-- JUST WATCH THIS CLIP!

SEE? SEE HOW BRILLIANT THAT IS? No you don't! If you haven't played the game, then of course you don't!

AGGGHGHGHG IT'S JUST SO GOOD!

I love the original BioShock. I think it is one of the defining games of this generation. Infinite blows it out of the water in every aspect.

I can't talk about this game. I can't explain how great it is. It. Just. Is. Game of the year? Absolutely. Game of the generation? ...Mmmm, that's probably still Mass Effect 2, or maybe Fallout: New Vegas, but it's pretty close.

If you play only one video game from 2013, play BioShock Infinite. Full stop. If you don't like this game, I can't help you, because that means you are probably dead.

Top 5 Best Movies of 2013

5. The World's End

Until this year, I had never seen any of the Cornetto Trilogy. In case you're unfamiliar with that term, it's used to describe the three movies starring Simon Pegg and Nick Frost, and directed by Edgar Wright, Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, and The World's End. They are completely unrelated films, but thematically linked enough that they are often mentioned together.

So, until this summer, I hadn't seen any of the three. Then, I watched Shaun of the Dead. It's amazing. Then, I watched Hot Fuzz. It's even better. Then, I watched The World's End. It's... Well, Hot Fuzz and Shaun of the Dead are both probably funnier, but The World's End stands up as a very strong story, perhaps surprisingly so. The acting is great, the story is surprisingly touching and heartwarming, and, yeah, it's really funny.

4. Iron Man 3

Iron Man 3 was a surprisingly divisive movie, with many fans loving it, and many hating it. I can only assume that the people who hate it are literally insane, because it's a fantastic film, perhaps my favorite of the Iron Man trilogy.

It's really hard to talk about this movie without spoiling the big reveal partway through, but suffice it to say that the film takes some shockingly huge risks which pay off incredibly well.

On a more personal note, the thing that makes this one of my favorite films of the year is the way it deals with Tony Stark's anxiety after the attack on New York in The Avengers. Speaking as someone with an anxiety problem, it's an issue that pop culture almost never talks about, and to see it actually portrayed really well-- Especially being portrayed by one of the superheroes I adore so much --personally touched me in a way no other movie managed to all year long (or even further back).

It does bother me that once it's time for the climax of the film they kind of forget about the anxiety problem they established Tony was having earlier in the film, and if they had handled that better this might have even made it to the number one spot on this list, but as it is, the film still works really well.

3. Frozen

Of course the new Disney Princess movie is on this list! I'm the guy who said Tangled was the best movie of 2010!

Frozen is not as good a movie as Tangled, but that's all right, because very few movies are. Frozen is, in a lot of ways, about defying every expectation you have about Disney movies. It takes many of the tropes commonly associated with Disney films, plays them straight just long enough for you to start rolling your eyes, and then BAM, turns them on their head mid-eyeroll.

The music is great. The characters are great. The story is extremely strong. It isn't quite the pitch-perfect success that Tangled was, but it comes really close. With three hits in a row, I'd say it's safe to say we're entering a new Disney golden age, and if the movies keep being as great as this, then I'm happy to be along for the ride.

2. Catching Fire

I love the Hunger Games books. I think that they're very well told page turning novels. They're my favorite YA series since Harry Potter, and I've read a lot of YA series.

And the first movie was good. It wasn't perfect, but it was good! This, however, is the difference between a good movie, and a great movie. I know I'm weird, and that Catching Fire is my favorite of the novels, but this is one of those movies where you are just captivated, and can't look away.

My favorite thing about the second book, and my favorite thing about the second film, might be considered a spoiler (even though the trailer totally showed it), so I won't talk about it here. Suffice it to say, don't miss this movie, whatever you do.

1. Pacific Rim

If you only watch one movie released in 2013, please make it Pacific Rim.

Pacific Rim was absolutely the most fun I had seeing a movie this year. I've said this a lot, but this movie is like what the Transformers franchise should be. Good robot designs. Excellent characters. Beautiful cinematography, and just an overall gorgeous LOOK to the film, part of which can be attributed to it being set primarily in Hong Kong, but a large part of which is just because of smart choices made with the film.

I've heard people criticize the movie for not having a good enough story, and... Yeah, ok, I can kind of see where they're coming from, but I don't agree. Story is not the primary thing you're coming to for this film, but it should still provide you with a good one. Here's the thing: It does. It's not the best part of the movie (that's the part where the robots are punching the monsters in the face), but it's competently done. The characters and the acting all really captured me, Mako Mori, Stacker Pentecost, Hannibal Chau, these are all very very distinct characters, and you really feel like you're only getting to see a little bit of a much more complicated life story with each of them. Even the background characters feel like fully realized characters who we're only seeing a little bit of. The stereotypical "RUSSIANS"? I think there's a reason those two have caught on in such a big way with so many people.

And here's the thing, I'd be lying if I called Pacific Rim some sort of deep, philosophical movie. I definitely think the movie has some interesting things to say, and I love the way the forces of the Earth have all grown together in the years since the first Kaiju attack, but at the end of the day I don't think it's trying to give us some deep insight on the meaning of life. It is, at it's core, an action movie about giant monsters and giant robots punching each other. But the thing is, not every movie needs to have some deep philosophical message. I like it movies do have some sort of deep meaning, but sometimes taking a fairly shallow concept and executing on it really, really well is just enough.

I re-watched this just the other day (for the record this is the first Blu-Ray I've felt the need to own since the best film of 2010, Tangled), and you know what? It still really holds up. This movie just does so many intelligent things. Taking a Kaiju film, and changing them from being a metaphor for the atomic bomb, like Godzilla, or even for 9/11, like Cloverfield, and turning them into what feel like a force of nature, into a hurricane, that's clever. Giving us a really fleshed out world, but then letting the audience figure out, or not figure out, a lot of the details of that world based on their own inference? That's brilliant.

And, yeah, the bits where the robots and the monsters are punching each other are really great too. I've been called a hypocrite for liking this movie so much, while still thinking that the Transformers film series is tantamount to a hate crime against people who like movies, but here's the thing: Every word I've just said, you can say the opposite about for those films. It's crazy how much more I'll enjoy a movie when I actually like the characters on the screen. It's amazing how much more fun I'll find the fight scenes when I can actually tell what's happening, because the cameraman isn't having a seizure. It's incredible how much more I'll like a movie when it's actually a good movie.

Pacific Rim didn't do super well in theaters this year, and that makes me really sad, because I can't even think of a movie that's as much sheer FUN as Pacific Rim is. The type of sheer glee I had when I left the theater, the only movie I can think of that match that was the last fifteen minutes of Cabin In The Woods (by the way, you should totally watch Cabin In The Woods), but this kept that dopey smile on my face for the full 2+ hours.

I would be willing to bet money that the story of Pacific Rim isn't over yet, and I don't mean in terms of a sequel (although please, please make a Pacific Rim 2). I see a future, twenty years from now, where people are still watching Pacific Rim. Where it goes down as one of the Sci-Fi Action classics. Until then, I'll just have to go watch it alone a few more times. But, seriously, that bit with the rocket punch? Amazing.

A Very Night Vale Christmas [Fan Fiction]

noreply@blogger.com (Zul) — Fri, 20 Dec 2013 03:03:00 +0000

Note: This is a Fan Fiction for Welcome to Night Vale. You can find Night Vale at http://commonplacebooks.com/welcome-to-night-vale/.

On today’s show: It’s Christmas in Night Vale, everyone’s favorite time of the year. What’s your favorite holiday tradition? Also: A very important message about the Christmas Spirit. And, as always, the weather!

Sleigh bells. A twinkling, in the darkness. Footsteps on the roof. Gunshots in the night. Welcome to Night Vale.

Season’s greetings, listeners. How is everyone doing today? I hope you are all doing well, this morning! Today is a wonderful day, Night Vale, as I get to start off the day with some good news!

This morning, as I was passing by the Ralphs on my way to the station, a hooded figure emerged from the dog park. Now, normally that would be frightening news indeed, but today is no ordinary day. The hooded figure was not wearing the usual robe, made of what appears to be shifting shadows. Instead, the hooded figure was dressed in-- You’ll never believe this-- Red! That’s right! For the first time, well, ever, a hooded figure was seen wearing a colorful robe!

A crowd grew together around the hooded figure as he emerged, despite the many warnings issued by the city not to come within fifty feet of any hooded figures, as if propelled by some unseen hands, drawing us all in like moths to a flame. The hooded figure began speaking in some ancient, eldritch language that I do not know, but was somehow able to understand. And do you know what he-- or she, it was pretty difficult to tell-- said?

It’s Christmas! Yes, Night Vale, that’s right! I hope you got all of your shopping done, because today is everyone's favorite day of the year-- Christmas! Oh, I do love Christmas!

As the hooded figure disappeared back into the dog park, looking downright festive in that blood red robe of his, which I still was not able to look directly at, Christmas day was officially kicked off!

Now, I know what you’re thinking. “But Cecil, what are you doing telling us this? Shouldn’t you get Christmas off? Shouldn’t you be spending it with family? Or someone special, like, say, wonderful, perfect Carlos?” Well, you’re right. I should be spending the day with family. But you know what, listeners? You are all my family, Night Vale, so how could I not come spend some of this wonderful day with you?

I know we’re all huge fans of Christmas here in Night Vale. The Sheriff’s Secret Police require us to be. Why, it’s hard for me to even say what my favorite part of the holiday is! If I were pressed, though, I would probably say that it’s the gifts.

Opening presents has always brought me such joy, ever since I was a little boy. Oh the joy and delight of seeing what wonderful gifts I had been brought that year, is there really any happier time in a child’s life? And then, getting to burn those gifts, as a sacrificial offering to Krampus, your father or mother reading the traditional passage from an old Austrian book of spells which always seems slightly moist, being read in the original German, of course.

What a magnificent sight it is, seeing the wooden toys burn, the plastic ones melt, and any electronics spark slightly, before going dark forever, all to protect you from a terrifying beast who would otherwise surely devour you in the night. There truly are few sights as wonderful as seeing the toys you've so desperately wanted for so long being forever purged by flame. That sort of memory sticks with you for your entire life!

It sounds like word has spread about today being Christmas, Night Vale, because I’m receiving a report that the Night Vale Mall is doing its biggest business in years! Just minutes after opening its gates, the mall was flooded with shoppers, running frantically through the stores like packs of wild dogs, searching desperately, almost viciously, for the items they needed for their last minute Christmas shopping.

Now, I don’t want to judge, but really, this is why you do your Christmas shopping early! I got Carlos a gift way back in mid-July, I know, it seems like a long time ago now, and as a result, I don’t have to go to the mall this late in the season! Procrastination only leads to bad things, and while I, of course, hope that everyone gets exactly what they want this year for Christmas, I can’t say that I’ll be surprised if there’s a lot of disappointing presents this year.

To anyone who might be listening to this from the mall or its surrounding area, good luck with your holiday shopping!

And now, a word from our sponsors.

I know that the Christmas season has a habit of sneaking up on us. I mean, just yesterday it was mid-July, and one announcement spoken in some ancient demonic tongue later, it’s the end of December! But StrexCorp has you covered, friends.

StrexCorp has set up Christmas tree lots all over Night Vale. And the best part is, the Christmas trees are free! Well, they don’t cost any money, at least.

Here’s what you need to do. Head over to any one of the StrexCorp Christmas tree lots. Find the tree you like. I personally have always been a fan of those noble firs, grand trees indeed. Once you’ve found the tree you like, find the cauldron at the center of the lot. Pick up one of the knives located next to the cauldron, and create a small slit on your hand-- Don’t worry, listeners, it hardly hurts at all. Let a few drops of blood drip into the cauldron.

And that’s it! Your Christmas tree will be transported via blood magic all the way back to your home, where you will find it fully decorated, looking more gorgeous than you could even imagine. Isn’t that great? StrexCorp really has taken all the hassle out of Christmas.

StrexCorp Christmas Lots: Death free since 2011.

Listeners, I don’t want to ruin your Christmas day with bad news, so I’m just going to skip over the next few announcements. Let’s see… War declared… Tramplings at the mall… Economic collapse… Oh, here we are! This is a fun one!

Little Abbie Mills, one of the students at Night Vale Elementary, has decided to give up her Christmas day, and is spending it doing charity work. Isn’t that great? She’s decided to go around town today painting over graffiti, giving food to those less fortunate than her, and helping families protect themselves from any dangerous Christmas Elves they might come across.

I think I speak for all of us when I say, good job Abbie! Just make sure not to cover up any of the city’s Sheriff’s Secret Police officially mandated graffiti! Ha ha ha ha ha! You’ll be able to tell which graffiti is officially mandated by… Oh. Well, it says here that there actually isn’t a way to tell which pieces of graffiti are officially mandated. Hm. Well, good luck, Abbie.

Listeners, Christmas is always a fun time, but, like little Abbie just reminded us, it’s important not to get too wrapped up in ourselves this time of year. So, I’d like to get a little more serious, for a moment, and talk about the Christmas Spirit.

The Christmas Spirit is a dark, terrible thing. Do not take the Christmas Spirit lightly. No one knows for certain who-- or what-- the Christmas Spirit once was, but one thing is for certain, if you should be out and about on Christmas after nightfall, beware. The Christmas Spirit is the stuff of nightmares, listeners. It’s suspected to be the reason why Santa Claus hasn’t visited our town in nearly twenty years-- Oop! I’m sorry, I hope there weren’t any children listening. Uh… What I meant, children, was that Santa Claus definitely still loves our little community as much as anyone, and it definitely hasn’t been your parents putting those gifts under the tree. Moving on.

Should you see the Christmas Spirit, run. Do not look back. Do not think back, as thinking about the Christmas Spirit has been shown to attract it in the past. And, as you run, should you suddenly be possessed by a feeling of extreme merriment, then all I can say is, may god rest ye, merry gentleman.

An update on the mall story from earlier: I’ve received some reports that the Night Vale Mall has become something which can now only be accurately referred to as a battleground. The shoppers have formed tribes, and now hunt together not only for bargains, but for each other. They have fashioned everything from primitive weapons like swords and spears, to makeshift explosives, and are currently engaged in combat just in front of the RadioShack.

It appears there are two main tribes who have come out leaders in the struggle. The first are calling themselves “The Children of Nicholas.” They are based out of the Sears, and appear to wear festive sweaters stained by the blood of their enemies to identify themselves. The second, based out of the Best Buy, referred to themselves only as “Shoppers,” and, in their own words, “worship the malevolent god Consumerus.”

If you are near the mall or, even worse, inside the mall as you hear this, I urge you to leave as soon as possible, and retreat to the safety of your own homes. I’m afraid that, before I received this update, I sent intern Timothy to the mall to investigate, and only now do I realize I may have been sending him to his own demise.

Listeners, I’m afraid little Abbie Mills has accidentally painted over some of the Sheriff’s Secret Police officially mandated graffiti. The Sheriff’s Secret Police have taken the eight year old girl into custody. I don’t know what will happen to her, but I’m sure all of us here in Night Vale are wishing her the best, unless the Sheriff’s Secret Police tell us otherwise.

And now, the weather. Today’s weather has been cancelled. Because of that, I’m afraid our weather segment has nothing to report.

The open warfare in the mall was cut short today when one of the makeshift explosives created out of a propane canister which was being used by the Sons of Nicholas exploded next to a load bearing beam, leveling a section of the Night Vale Mall, and crushing both the Shoppers, and the Sons of Nicholas alike.

I’m afraid intern Timothy wasn’t able to make it out of the mall in time. And I regret to inform the audience, and his family, that intern Timothy has died in the line of duty here at the Night Vale Community Radio Station. Our hearts go out to all of those who knew intern Timothy and--

What’s this? I’ve just been handed a piece of paper updating me on the situation in the Night Vale Mall… Why-- This says that… Is that right?

Listeners, wonderful news! Intern Timothy has been… Found! Alive, no less! Rescue teams found him unconscious, pinned beneath the fallen Radioshack sign. Emergency armored medical vehicles are taking him to the Night Vale Hospital as we speak, and he is expected to live. It’s a Christmas miracle, everyone!

Well listeners, that brings us to the end of our show. And really, could anyone among us ask for a more perfect ending, than to find out that a citizen of our fair town wasn’t killed, but merely maimed and likely crippled?

Intern Timothy shall not be taken from us today, instead he shall get to know the many experiences left in life. The joys of falling in love. The pains of seeing your love leave you, either for another man, or for the one who takes us all, eventually, death. The utter sorrow of growing old alone and filled with regrets, until one day Intern Timothy will look back at his life, think of this day, and scream to a harsh, uncaring night sky “Why? Why couldn’t you have taken me then?” I don’t think there’s a more perfect ending to be had.

Stay tuned for six straight hours of your favorite holiday music, as a part of our fair town’s radio tradition “The Scares of Halloween.” Merry Christmas, Night Vale… And good night.

Welcome to Night Vale is a production of Commonplace Books. This is a not-for-profit fan work with no relation to Commonplace Books. Please, don’t sue me.

Today’s proverb: Rudolph the red nosed reindeer had a very shiny nose. Wait, that’s not a reindeer, that’s a bomb. Run away.

Comic Book Review -- Justice League 23.4: Secret Society #1

noreply@blogger.com (Zul) — Fri, 27 Sep 2013 06:33:00 +0000

Villains Month is over. DC's third September of something completely different in a row (the past two being the New 52 launch, and the #0 issues) has come to a close, the 3D covers have sold out, and the many, many stories have been told. I would, overall, call this month a success. This month I've read good stories, I've read decent stories, and I've tried to avoid the bad stories (to some success), but it was, if nothing else, a refresher, and I enjoyed it.

I've got one of the 3D variants of Justice League #23.4 sitting on my desk right now, and, seriously, it's super cool. The hands are all totally reaching out at me, and stuff. Have you seen these 3D covers? They're so cool, you guys and-- That is not the point! I'm sorry, the point is, Secret Society #1, sitting on my desk, I've read it, would you like to hear about it? Well I'm going to tell you about it any way.

Secret Society #1 really shouldn't be called that. What it should be called is "Outsider #1," because the Trinity War villain is certainly the star of the issue, and make no mistake, it certainly falls into the "good story" category of Villains Month. It's all about his origins, and why he... Ok, you know what? There's no way to talk about this issue without spoiling the crap out of Trinity War and the premise of Forever Evil, so if you haven't read Trinity War yet, I'm about to tell you the ending of it.

...

...

...

The Outsider is the Earth-3 version of Alfred Pennyworth! He used Pandora's Box to bring the Crime Syndicate to Earth-1! The Justice League is dead, the world is ours!

Secret Society #1 is all about The Outsider's origin in greater detail. Specifically, just why does the Earth-3 version of Alfred look so pale? Why does he have that nervous tick of laughing? Ha.

Secret Society #1 is a good issue. It tells a compelling backstory for a villain, it gives us some reveals about Owlman and The Outsider both, and it has a cliffhanger that will definitely have you excited for Forever Evil #2 next week.

It's set in Earth-3 Gotham before The Outsider fled to Earth-1, and seeing Earth-3 Gotham, and just how corrupt it is (and keep in mind, this is compared to Gotham!) is a lot of fun. Seeing Owlman in action is great, and this issue is very heavy on set up for Owlman's character, especially in relation to the rest of the Crime Syndicate. We also get to see one of Earth-3's "heroes," although calling him that might be a bit much.

It's obvious that a lot of this issue is relying on you having read Forever Evil #1 (we get clarification on just what it was that happened to Talon in this issue, for example), and a lot of this issue is setting up things to come, especially, as with Forever Evil #1, relating to Nightwing, who it seems will have a very very major role in Forever Evil as a whole. There's striking imagery, and at least one moment that manages to have you genuinely sympathetic for Owlman, which is quite an accomplishment for a character who is literally just "evil Batman."

Because of the major things to come which this issue sets up, I would heavily recommend anyone reading Forever Evil pick this issue up.

The only major problem I had with the issue is the art. It's not bad, in fact it's quite good in parts, but it's very very dark, and sometimes that makes it almost incomprehensible. Sequential art relies on my being able to tell what's going on, and there are points in this issue where that's a problem. Still, it didn't get in the way of the story for the most part, and there are images in this issue that are very very striking which I don't want to spoil for you here. (To those who have read the issue: Talon. That is all.)

This might be my favorite of the Villains Month issues, and I read quite a few which I very much enjoyed. Consider this a strong recommendation. (Plus, seriously you guys, these 3D covers are, like, super cool.)

Trinity War's Successes and Failures, a Crossover Recap and Review

noreply@blogger.com (Zul) — Fri, 27 Sep 2013 05:49:00 +0000

(Note: The following is adapted from a very long forum post I made to io9's Observation Deck forum.)

Trinity War was the big summer event that was supposed to feature the three Justice Leagues (the Justice League, the JLA, and the Justice League Dark) fighting each other over the mysterious artifact Pandora's Box. Pandora, The (Nu) Question, and The Phantom Stranger make up the "Trinity of Sin," who also feature heavily in it. Including tie-ins it was 11 issues long, and about four of those were worthwhile.

So here's the rundown (spoilers, obviously). As you may have heard, Superman and Wonder Woman are dating now. Well, the United States government decides that they don't like the fact that the two most powerful beings on the planet are now dating, and decide to create their own Justice League under (skinny) Amanda Waller, led by Steve Trevor.

The Justice League of America's goal was supposedly the same as the regular Justice League's, truth, justice, the American way, all that. Secretly (as in, even the members of the JLA don't know it, only Waller, Trevor, and a select few others do), they picks were specifically chosen to take down the Justice League should the need arise. The JLA was made up of Martian Manhunter (to counter Superman), Katana (to counter Wonder Woman), Hawkman (to counter Aquaman), Vibe (to counter The Flash), Stargirl (to counter Cyborg), Green Lantern (to counter... Well, to counter Green Lantern), and Catwoman (to counter Batman). Green Arrow eventually gets added to the team too, because he really wants to be on a Justice League, you guys.

Some of the picks were dodgy, but I actually thought the first five issues of the Nu52 JLA were pretty good. They featured the new JLA squaring off against a secret society that's recruiting various supervillains to their cause, led by a mysterious figure called The Outsider. It's recommended reading for Trinity War, because The Outsider and the Secret Society are the main baddies in that event. They end up taking down Professor Ivo, but The Outsider gets away (but not before some incredibly awesome foreshadowing about his identity. Basically he has a map of the Batcave, and he knows who Batman is).

Also during this time Waller has a certain scientist working for her, Dr. Arthur Light, examine a thingymabobber that the Secret Society hid. It explodes, and he's transformed into Dr. Light, who, in the Nu 52, is now a good guy! Oh yeah, and the Atom (a member of the Justice League) is actually a double agent for the JLA.

So Pandora's Box. Pandora #1, billed as "a prequel to Trinity War," gives background on Pandora herself. She is one of the members of the Trinity of Sin, the three greatest sinners in history, Pandora, Judas (The Phantom Stranger), and The Question, whose identity was erased from history, who were all sentenced to the curse of immortality by the council of eternity. Pandora (accidentally) unleashed the original evil into the world waaaay back when, and now she has Pandora's Box, and she's convinced that if either the person with a completely pure, or completely evil heart touches it, evil will be removed from the world (as well as the Seven Sins, who are actual physical monsters). So, in part one of Trinity War, she takes the box to Superman. Turns out even Superman has some evil in his heart, because when he touches it, it briefly turns him evil. Wonder Woman knocks the box from his hands, and he's back to normal... OR IS HE?! (He is.)

I'm not even going to get into the why, because this recap is already super long, but at this time Shazam (yeah, he's called that now) decides to take an urn of Black Adam's ashes, and spread them among the sands of his homeland, because even villains deserve an honorable burial, yada yada yada. The problem is that Kahndaq, Black Adam's homeland, is basically desert North Korea, and absolutely off limits to Americans. Shazam says it'll be fine though, because Wonder Woman and Superman went there themselves, disregarding the laws of the country, just a few weeks prior to free some hostages. Considering he's like, ten, I'll allow it.

The Justice League detects Shazam heading for Kahndaq, and decide they need to go get him out of there before it leads to an international incident. The JLA sees the entire Justice League headed there, and they decide that must be the Justice League finally deciding to overthrow the Khandaqi government, or something, and head after them in turn. The Justice League Dark is actually like barely in this comic, so they don't do anything.

So Shazam, the Justice League, and the JLA all arrive at Khandaq at the same time, and all start yelling at each other. Once they're there though, Doctor Light's powers start going haywire because he's next to the most powerful solar battery in the world, Superman, and he accidentally zaps Wonder Woman, and Superman gets really really angry, and, well...

SO THAT HAPPENS. About two pages later though, The Outsider is like "lol, just kidding, it was really me." I guess Kotaku didn't read that far into the issue when they wrote their article.

And that's part one. Here's where the problems with Trinity War actually start. Hardly anything happens between parts one and five, including tie-ins. It's a bunch of the Justice Leagues starting to fight... and then not actually getting into an all out brawl.

So in part two the Justice League and the JLA start fighting each other, but right as they start Superman yells "STOP!" and tells the JLA to take him into custody, and that he can't believe he lost control like that.

Wonder Woman decides very logically that the BOX THAT TURNED SUPERMAN EVIL might have something to do with WHY SUPERMAN TURNED EVIL (it doesn't). She decides to go after Pandora. Batman says that there was a mind controlling supervillain hiding in Khandaq at the time, so it was probably him that did it. The Justice League and the JLA start working together to figure out why Superman killed that guy, and Amanda Waller is like "oooh, hey, Firestorm, make me some kryptonite, because I'm definitely not evil or anything."

In Pandora #2 (Tie-in 2) Pandora goes and talks to Vandal Savage, and it turns out he can't use Pandora's Box either, because it turns him into a crying regretful mess when he does.

In part three Wonder Woman takes Pandora's Box to Hephaestus, who tells her that the greek gods don't actually know anything about it, they just took credit for it. Wonder Woman decides that to find Pandora, she needs the help of the Justice League Dark so halfway through the series they finally start showing up in a meaningful way (there's a bit with the Secret Society kidnapping Madame Xanadu, it doesn't actually matter). The Justice League and the JLA go after Wonder Woman, and for some reason don't want her to go after the box that looks like the most likely cause for Superman turning evil ("it's too dangerous," I think). Anyways, she basically says "no, I'm going to find Pandora anyways," and takes some of the heroes (Stargirl, Hawkman, Frankenstein, Aquaman) with her. The Phantom Stranger shows up and says "Hey Batman, I'll take you to Heaven so we can just ask Dr. Light who killed him." So Batman takes Katana and a couple others with him, and they go off into tie-in number two. Constantine, meanwhile, tells Shazam that he has some really nice candy in a windowless van parked out behind the House of Mystery, and they walk off to go chill in tie-in number three. The Question shows up and tells Superman he knows that he's innocent, and that he wants to help Superman prove his innocence. Superman (who's looking super sickly now, by the way) follows him and they break out, because reasons (remember that Superman believes that he is guilty at this point). Oh, and the Outsider mentions to the reader the minor detail that he has a mole planted in the Justice League.

Anyway, tie-in two, Constantine tricks Shazam into switching bodies with him because NuConstantine is a douchebag, and Shazam tricks him right back. That's... Basically the whole issue.

Tie-in three is actually a solid issue of the Phantom Stranger, but has almost no impact on the plot of Trinity War (which, I suppose, it could be argued that tie-ins shouldn't. I'll leave that debate for another day, especially since I really liked this issue). Batman, Katana, Deadman, and The Phantom Stranger go to heaven, freak out about how nice everything is there and how they'd love to just stay there forever, get over it, and then find Dr. Light. Dr. Light is in a heaven coma and it could be bad to wake him up, for heaven reasons, but Batman is like "Clark is my bro, I don't care about harming this innocent man! WAKE UP!" Aaaand Dr. Light knows absolutely bugger all. The Phantom Stranger is erased from existence because of stuff that's happening in his solo series.

Part four! Remember the mind controlling baddie who was in Khandaq? Yeah, they find him. It wasn't him. Superman shows up. The Atom admits that she's been a spy for the JLA all along, which increases tensions between the group. They decide that maybe Waller is behind Superman killing Dr. Light, since she wanted to replace the Justice League with the JLA, and destroying public confidence in them is a big first step. Not long after they get to the JLA headquarters however, it turns out that The Outsider planted a bomb in Doctor Light's body, or something, and he blows the JLA headquarters to smithereens.

Pandora takes the box to Lex Luthor, since she's looking for someone evil, and Wonder Woman shows up to get the box from her. Like an idiot, Wonder Woman grabs the box, and BOOM, it turns her evil. OK, bear with me here, this is where Trinity War actually starts being kind of good again.

Part 5 of 6 (which is actually part 9 of 11, for those keeping score) finally has the heroes fighting. Basically, when Wonder Woman grabs the box it somehow activates, and everyone nearby starts fighting over it. It turns everyone nearby except for Pandora and John Constantine evil (Constantine says he's unaffected because you "can't spoil a pot that's already filthy"). The heroes at the JLA headquarters help people out of the rubble, and such, and realize that it probably wasn't Waller. The JLA realizes just how badly they've been being played by Waller though, which is why they're going to become the Justice League of Canada soon (that's not a joke). So, basically, this issue is a big fight scene, but it's a well done fight scene, so I can't complain.

Nothing of consequence to Trinity War happens in Pandora #3, and I dropped the title immediately after that issue since all the issues I read were just boring, so I won't mention it any further.

So, the big conclusion. Would you like to know how this series ends? Incredibly well!

Constantine takes the box to the Temple of Hephaestus, where it was originally discovered (except for the fact that Pandora #1 contradicts that). A bunch more heroes show up, and one by one they start fighting each other for control of the box. Superman collapses, since he's super sick at this point. Firestorm checks him out, and realizes what's causing his sickness; He has a microscopic piece of kryptonite in his brain (this is what caused him to melt Dr. Light's face). How did it get there, you ask? The Atom put it there.

Turns out The Atom and The Outsider have been working together from the very start. They've also uploaded a virus called GRID into Cyborg, so he's been a traitor too, without even knowing it (upon this revelation the metal parts of Cyborg eject the human parts and form a fully robot body calling itself GRID, Vic is currently being kept alive by the green lantern).

So, just who is The Outsider, who has been being hyped up since the sixth issue of Nu52 Justice League? Oh, that's simple, it's Alfred Pennyworth. Kind of.

Guess what the "Trinity" in "Trinity War" stands for. Is it for the typical "trinity" of superheroes, Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman? Nope. Is it for the "Trinity of Sin," The Question, The Phantom Stranger, and Pandora? Nope. Is it for the trinity of Justice Leagues involved in it? Not that, either.

It's for Earth-3.

Holy mother of god was that an effective plot twist.

Earth-3, in case you aren't familiar, is the alternate Earth where all the Superheroes are Supervillains, and vice-versa. Turns out that in the New 52, Earth-3 is a desolate wasteland destroyed by the Crime Syndicate (the evil Justice League). Years ago Owlman sent his loyal servant (and the man who killed his parents) Alfred Pennyworth to a parallel universe, along with another member of the Crime Syndicate, Atomica, who took the identity of The Atom in our world.

Pandora's Box? That's basically an ancient Boom Tube, used to travel between Earth-1 and Earth-3.

This is, to say the least, an awesome reveal. The Justice Leagues have pretty much already beaten each other, so the Crime Syndicate steps out of the portal created by Pandora's Box, wipes the floor with the Justice Leagues, and then takes over the world. That's why DC has been doing Villains Month this September, and that's what Forever Evil is about. The Crime Syndicate is claiming that the Justice League is dead, and have taken over the world, as well as destroying a large part of it. Now Lex Luthor has decided no one is going to take over the world but him, and he's going to lead a group of supervillains to fight the Crime Syndicate. Forever Evil seems awesome so far, I highly recommend checking that one out since it seems much, much better. If you want to read that, start with Forever Evil #1, and Justice League #23.4 (which is The Outsider's origin story, and I would call required reading).

Trinity War wasn't the worst story ever, not by a long shot. The art was very good throughout, and it started and ended really, really strongly. The problem is that the middle was a bunch of running around talking to different people, and that the tie-ins were almost all super boring (I love The Phantom Stranger series that's going on right now, and that issue was no different). For a series which promised us the Justice Leagues fighting each other in an all out war, it really didn't deliver on that until the very end, and when it did it used the cop-out of mind control. I would have preferred to see a simpler story. The ending, and the reveal of what Pandora's Box actually was, left a lot of unanswered questions as well. Who originally created Pandora's Box, all those thousands of years ago? Why did the box make people turn evil (they do handwave this by saying that Earth-3 is the origin of all evil, but I'd like more of an answer than that)? How did the Crime Syndicate get their hands on the box?

...That said, there's still a lot of stuff that works, especially toward the beginning and ending. Trinity War was a disappointment to me overall, but it's still worth a read if only to see the lead in to the (in my opinion) much more compelling Forever Evil event. Still, I can't help but wish it had hit the mark just a little bit more.

Comic Book Review -- Justice League 23.2 "Lobo #1" (Spoilers)

noreply@blogger.com (Zul) — Thu, 12 Sep 2013 01:02:00 +0000

In case you haven't been following DC Comics news lately, PR hasn't been great for the company. Among the Harley Quinn nude-suicide/Batwoman not getting married debacles, there was a smaller bit of backlash when images of the new design for Lobo, a character who's always been straight out of 90's comics "RRRRR NEED MORE MUSCLES AND POCKETS" phase, were released.

This new Lobo design was announced to appear during DC's "Villain's Month," in Justice League 23.2, "Lobo #1," and many people, myself included, were skeptical. It wasn't so much that the design was terrible, it was more that it just wasn't Lobo. I'm not even a big fan of Lobo (although, like everything else about 52, he was great in 52), but if you're going to introduce a character who seems almost nothing like the original, then why not just make a new character entirely?

Even stranger was the fact that Lobo had already been introduced in the DC New 52, looking pretty much like he always had (which is to say like an albino Hulk Hogan), so the introduction of this new version of Lobo seemed a bit strange.

Well, as it turns out, despite the questionable choices being made at DC, we didn't have that much to worry about, because "Lobo #1" is just fine.

Let me back up a minute. "Lobo #1" is not a great comic. It's not some masterpiece, and the actual story of this one-shot isn't anything you haven't seen before. This is a very typical "Sci-Fi bounty hunter/smuggler" story, to the point where you can almost tell what's going to happen beat for beat. "Oh, Lobo's sitting in the crowd at this party? I wonder if he's there to kill someone?" "Oh, the mysterious cargo Lobo is smuggling is strangely heavy? I wonder what could be inside it?" "Oh, Lobo's cargo turns out to be *spoiler*? I wonder how this will turn out?"

However, as an introduction to this new/old character, this issue works well. The first thing to note is this: The new Lobo actually doesn't look half-bad. I don't think that concept art was very representative of what the new Lobo looks like in action, and in practice he's much more Han Solo, much less Edward Cullen. This version of Lobo is very quickly established as a very cold "only in it for the money and respect" kind of character. And... It works.

But here's the thing that made this issue work for me, above everything else. And this is going to spoil the ending, so if you don't want to know how Lobo #1 ends, and what that means for potential future appearances of the character, stop reading now.

Are they gone? Ok, cool.

So here's what's up with the new version of Lobo (and I think DC may have mentioned this before the book went public, but I'm treating it like a spoiler any way). The Lobo who has been living on Earth for the past two years is not actually Lobo, he's an impostor. He is (I believe this is what this issue was implying) the only other survivor of the true Lobo's rampage and destruction of their home planet, Czarnia. At the end of the issue, the new Lobo receives his payment for the smuggling job, the location of the Lobo impostor, Earth. At the end of the issue, the new Lobo takes off, and heads for Earth, to finish off the only person to ever escape him.

All right, that's pretty cool.

I'm not sure where or when this storyline will be continued, but I'm eager to see where it goes. I'm not saying that I have complete faith that this storyline will be good, but I hope it is, and I can certainly see interesting places they could take it. I'm hoping what they won't do is have New Lobo show up and kill Lobo Classic immediately.

What I'm hoping is for an actual storyline involving a battle between the two, New Lobo showing off his bounty hunter skills to track Lobo Classic down, and maybe even show Lobo Classic trying to recruit the help of other villains, or the Justice League, to stop New Lobo from destroying everything in his path in search of Lobo Classic.

If that's where this storyline goes, and hopefully that's where they're planning on taking it, then count me in. This new version of the main man seems like a pretty cool character to me, and I have only the vaguest affinity for the original version, so I'm ready to see where things go. This is a much better way to introduce a new version of a classic character, and shake up the status quo, than, say, what they've done with The Question, which is to say completely ruined The Question.

But that's a topic for another time. The point is, "Lobo #1" is a solid, thought not outstanding, issue, and I'm intrigued to see where they take the character.

Marveling - (Wolverine and the X-Men #1-4)

noreply@blogger.com (Zul) — Wed, 11 Sep 2013 04:53:00 +0000

I like comic books. I would imagine that's something people who know me have figured out by now. I think Superheroes are cool, and there's potential for a lot of excellent stories to be told uniquely through the comic book format.

The thing is, while I like things like the Marvel Cinematic Universe a lot, I'm still relatively unfamiliar with the actual Marvel comic universe, so not long ago I asked for some suggestions on books to help me get caught up, and I got a b unch! So, between those, some arcs I've decided I want to read on my own, and some cheap stuff I picked up at a con a while back (mostly because Brian Michael Bendis name was on the cover and he's awesome), I've got a good chunk of Marvel stuff to jump into. And I thought, hey, why not chronicle my journey through the Marvel Universe?

So here's a new thing I'm going to be writing precisely whenever. I'm going to jot down some thoughts about whatever it is I've just read! This is going to be pretty informal, spoiler-laden, and will probably be stream-of-consciousness-esque, because I really just want to focus on getting my thoughts on each comic down and putting them out there.

The first thing which jumped out at me out of the huge pile I've got sitting in my bedroom right now is Wolverine and the X-Men, by Jason Aaron, because I remember liking the cartoon from a few years back quite a bit. I looked it up, this series actually started two years after the cartoon, so I can only assume the idea was popular enough to gain it's own ongoing comic. Basically the idea is that instead of Professor Xavier, Wolverine is leading the X-Men/The Xavier Academy (well, in this it's "Jean Grey Academy") of Higher Learning. It really worked well in cartoon format, though the show was unfortunately short lived.

The comic takes that idea and does a slightly different spin on it. This is basically the various older X-Men (Kitty Pryde, Iceman, Beast, Rogue... Rachel Grey? I don't know who that is.) teaching a younger generation of X-Men, including a bunch of characters who, based on comments in the story I'm assuming are characters which had already been established, but who I'm not familiar with. These include characters like Kid Gladiator, an alien prince, Broo, a nerdy alien whose species is apparently quite vicious, other than him, Kid Omega, who is apparently a bad guy? ...Uh, my point. Even though I wasn't familiar with these characters until reading these first four issues, they do a very good job of if not giving you a ton of character backstory, then at least giving you a good idea of what each character's personality is.

This felt like a pretty good leaping on point to more modern X-Men comics to me, because (due to something they keep referring to as the "schism,") the X-Men have broken up at the beginning of this, and Wolverine is reforming them. And the characters they've picked to focus on tend to be the X-Men I've always liked in their various films and cartoons: Wolverine, Kitty Pryde, Beast, Rogue, Iceman, and the aforementioned Rachel Grey, who I'm assuming is related to Jean Grey.

The story for the first three issues involves around the opening of the school (and the inspection by the school board), and then the new King of the Hellfire Club, a twelve year old boy who apparently runs a massive arms corporation. The tone of the book seems to be more lighthearted than I expected, mostly focusing on comedy and school antics. I'm not totally sure if it works, to be honest, because while the tone seemed to be pretty goofy, most of the jokes fell pretty flat for me.

My major problem with the first three issues lies mostly with the artwork. It feels very disjointed and it tends to do extreme close-ups on everything, to the point where I can't tell what's happening. There were quite a few panels that I honestly just didn't know what it was supposed to be depicting, and in a comic book that's a pretty major flaw. It kind of felt like the comic book equivalent of Michael Bay cinematography. It might be showing the coolest stuff in the world, but you can't really tell if you can't see what's going on!

The reveal that the entire school has been built on an enormous living hunk of rock called Krakoa was pretty cool though, and the story seemed to function fine, it was just a major problem with the artwork really bogging my enjoyment of the comic down.

The fourth issue was much better. The art shifted to a more traditional style, and I could actually tell what was going on. This issue focused on the introduction of Angel, who has lost his memories during a battle with Apocalypse, and now believes himself to be an actual angel, as well as the introduction of another new student, "Genesis"/Evan, who turns out to be a clone of Apocalypse. I liked this issue for a couple reasons. First of all, there were actually some funny moments ("I found a gray hair [this morning]. The whole day I've been pretending it was an illusion and that we're secretly under attack by Mysterio."). Second of all, both the Angel stuff and the Genesis stuff seems like it's setting up some potentially very interesting plot lines (to say nothing of the actual final shot of a suddenly-pregnant Kitty Pryde).

So overall I wasn't totally sold on the first four issues of Wolverine and the X-Men, but I liked the last issue enough that I'll give the next trade a shot. I like the idea behind the series, the initial story seems like it has potential, and I'm very happy with their selection of characters to focus on, but I thought the humor fell pretty flat, and the artwork in the first three issues was pretty bad.

Comic Book Review -- Forever Evil #1

noreply@blogger.com (Zul) — Thu, 05 Sep 2013 01:12:00 +0000

(Spoilers for Trinity War to follow.)

I'm just going to open with this: Trinity War was a disappointment. The much hyped summer event comic which featured the three Justice Leagues (The Justice League, The Justice League of America, and The Justice League Dark, for those counting) fighting each other started very strong with this:

And ended very strong with this:

But pretty much everything in between was just kind of pointless and lame. The three Justice Leagues didn't so much go to war as they did have a brief skirmish and then come to a polite understanding (although Trinity Polite Understanding wouldn't have been as catchy a title), and the tie-ins were all pretty bad with the exception of The Phantom Stranger #12, and that only worked as a Phantom Stranger story because the current run on The Phantom Stranger is fantastic and you should be reading that instead.

So, while Trinity War is far from the worst comic out there (or even the worst comic DC's put out recently), it had a strong beginning, a strong ending, and a very long, very mediocre middle, which ended in a fairly lame story overall.

Which makes me all the more excited to tell you that the first issue of Forever Evil, the immediate follow up to Trinity War, is excellent.

Forever Evil picks up shortly after Trinity War ended, with the Crime Syndicate, the evil doppelgangers of the Justice League from Earth-3, having used Pandora's Box to make it through to the Justice League's world and supposedly killed the Justice League.

The Crime Syndicate has used their resources, and their new member Grid, to black out the planet, announce to the world that it now belongs to them, and broken the world's super-criminals out of prison. As in, all of them. This, of course, leads into this month's special DCU-wide event, Villain's Month, where all of the DC Universe's titles have been replaced by #1 issues for their respective villains (Justice League 23.1-23.4, for example, will be "Darkseid #1," "Lobo #1," "Dial E #1," and "Secret Society #1").

And, in my humble opinion, Forever Evil #1 is an excellent start to the DCU-wide event which will be running from now until March.

Geoff Johns has gotten a pretty bad reputation among comic book fans lately, not entirely undeservedly, but this is him at his best. His talents have always seemed best suited to the massive, broad scale stories, and his smaller scale stories (which, unfortunately, Trinity War ended up becoming) usually fall a bit flat. Forever Evil provides a story of an impressive scale, and he seems to be jumping right in.

The Crime Syndicate present excellent villains, and having recruited virtually every supervillain in the world sets them up an incredibly powerful. The fact that our heroes are gone, and our "hero" for the series is now a famous supervillain himself (who is none too happy to let the Crime Syndicate conquer his world) gives us an excellent hook.

Even within the first issue, the plot takes several twists and turns, including several which seem like they'll have massive repercussions DCU-wide even after the Forever Evil event has come and gone. If Forever Evil can keep up this level of quality, it'll be a series to remember.

Doctor Wheuss

noreply@blogger.com (Zul) — Sat, 10 Aug 2013 18:45:00 +0000

In November of '63, JFK got shot.

Doctor Who would premiere, but instead it did not.

The world had to wait just one week longer,

to see the Doctor appear, so viewership would be stronger.

The Doctor was a man, who wasn't a man.

He looked very old, and always had a plan.

He traveled space-time with his granddaughter,

Fighting Daleks, and Sontarans, and Jibbldygogglers.

In the first episode two teachers spied,

the Doctor's blue box, "bigger on the inside!"

The Doctor and his kin traveled for a time,

until the actor got sick, no longer feeling his prime.

But the show did well, and it's fans venerate,

so the creators said, "why, he'll regenerate!"

So Hartnell stepped down, giving Troughton his due,

playing the same man, although, different, too.

"The Doctor's a Time Lord! An alien!" they said,

"He doesn't die, he just changes instead!"

And so the Doctor's legacy would continue on,

first as Troughton, then Pertwee, Baker, and Davison.

He was a Time Lord, that much you knew,

but there were other Time Lords, just like him, too.

They weren't very nice, even the nicer ones,

always chasing him down, so he'd be on the run.

The Master was the worst, the Doctor's arch-rival,

and no matter what happened, you could count on his survival.

The Doctor travelled in a box, always doing what's best,

no longer with his granddaughter, she had to leave the nest,

but with new companions, like Sarah Jane, Ace, or K9

they were all sorts of people, each given a chance to shine.

Romana, the Brigadeer, the list goes on and on,

as it should, since the show's run for 50 years (it's not gone)!

But something sinister would happen in '89,

poor reception and low ratings meant that it was time.

The show would be cancelled, the fans would be ignored.

A dark time for our fandom, now they would be bored.

They tried a revival in the 90's, for fans to look at,

but it was really bad, let's not talk about that.

And so for awhile, it seemed memory of the show was getting hazy,

when out of the ashes rose a man, "Russel T. Davies!"

Davies was a fan as a kid, who wanted the show back,

so he told the BBC there was something they lacked.

He cast Eccleston, as a 9th Doctor,

and he cast a pop singer as Rose (this show would be hotter).

But terrible things happened to our old Time Lord friend,

an enormous war had brought his species to an end.

Fighting the Daleks, the two species warred,

until the Doctor became the last of the Time Lords.

So he travelled with Rose, running from his past,

and the fans who were watching were having a blast!

But Eccleston no longer wanted to be the role's tenant,

So along came a fan favorite, David Tennant!

The new show was edgier, but had it's charm too

(and the special effects no longer blew).

It had it's low points, like alien farts,

but it also had what it needed, a whole lot of heart.

Piper left the show, and we got Martha Jones,

the Doctor after all, shouldn't be alone.

The stories were good, kept you on the brink,

during the scary ones, "don't blink!"

And along came our good friend the Master,

the Daleks were back too, oh what a disaster.

Donna came along, but then she forgot it,

and the Doctor felt bad, because he had wrought it.

Then Tennant left too, giving us Matt Smith,

Davies left showrunner, leaving us with,

a guy who would surely make the show profit,

fan-favorite writer Steven Moffat.

The new show was darker, but a fairy tale too.

Kept you hiding your eyes, and wondering "Doctor Who?"

And that's where we are, with Amy, Clara, and River,

and it Hurts me to wait to see the show deliver,

it's 50th-year special this November,

we'll see David, and Matt, finally together.

And the show will continue, past 10 and 11,

and in my opinion watching the show is heaven,

because Doctor Who is about such magnificent things,

like a fairy tale filled with science and kings.

As far as shows go, Doctor Who is pretty fun,

so for now I've got just one word. Run.

Reviews Of This Week's Comics (That I Read)

noreply@blogger.com (Zul) — Sat, 29 Jun 2013 08:24:00 +0000

So I went to the comic shop today and picked up Justice League #21, Justice League Dark #21, JLA #5, and The Wake #2. I'm going to share my thoughts about them! Spoilers below.

JLA #5

SEXPAND
Ugh. You know, it's almost a shame that JLA is as good as it is, because it makes me feel that much worse when it gets things so very wrong. The idea that the U.S. Government is creating a new super team specifically to counter the Justice League should they ever get out of hand is really solid to me. And I liked the first arc a whole lot, actually, even if I think the "MOST DANGEROUS HEROES IN THE WORLD" marketing is perhaps a bit misplaced for a team with Vibe on it, and if I think it's weird that Catwoman is on the JLA at all. There were missteps in the whole thing (they should have just made Green Arrow a member from the start, that plotline went nowhere) but overall it was pretty darn good.

So here's the thing. Dear everyone who makes comic books: Please stop writing in fake-out cliffhangers to your comic books, especially when you have no intent on following through on them. Shooting Catwoman in the head last month was a pretty obvious cliffhanger to sell more issues, but there were still interesting places you could have gone with it (even if we knew Catwoman wasn't dead from the fact that her solo series is still going, and that she's in Trinity War marketing). I personally really liked the idea that this wasn't the real Catwoman on the JLA the entire time, and that there was someone other than Selina Kyle using the name just to be a member of the JLA. But no, turns out it was Martian Manhunter who got shot in the head the whole time. That's a cheap first-page resolution to a cliffhanger that had no business being there. The whole business with a coffin being on the cover, and the description for this issue being about how the JLA is "reeling from the shocking death in #4"? All nonsense.

Like I said, other than that MAJOR FLAW, this is a pretty good issue. It resolves the first story arc well, it leads right into Trinity War, it gives the characters a chance to form as a team, I like the backstory for Martian Manhunter, I think the idea of a psychic plague is super interesting... I liked it a lot... EXCEPT FOR THE STUPID CLIFFHANGER RESOLUTION.

Justice League #21

SEXPAND
I'm not a huge Shazam fan (it's his name now, get used to it, it's a better name anyway), but I liked this issue. It's a fun first fight for the character against his greatest foe... I'm actually way more invested in Black Adam as a character than I am Shazam/Captain Marvel because 52 is awesome. I liked Black Adam as a noble but misguided king in 52 more than I do as a truly evil character like he is in this, but whatever, maybe that'll change eventually.

So, were there this many different sidekicks for the character before now? I knew about Mary Marvel, but there's like 5 different sidekicks for Shazam now.

I don't know if Shazam is going to have a huge presence in Trinity War (I'd imagine he will since the Council of Eternity gave him his powers, and punished the Trinity of Sin) but it seemed a little weird to me that this issue is the last one as a lead in to Trinity War. JLA is a pretty direct lead in, Justice League Dark (as I'll cover in a minute) is, while not as direct as JLA, pretty well ties in... This doesn't seem like it's building up to the summer's big event comic, it feels like they just had to get this issue out of the way before Trinity War started.

It's a decent enough issue though. Overall it was probably my least favorite of the week, but it's still pretty good, everything else was just a little better.

Justice League Dark #21 (All right, #19-21)

So let me list my entire familiarity with the characters of Justice League Dark. I have read the first trade of Justice League Dark, and I have read Justice League Dark #19-21. That is it. I have no familiarity with Deadman, John Constantine, Madame Xanadu, or Frankenstein outside of that. And also, I didn't really like the first trade of Justice League Dark at all.

That said, this was a pretty decent story arc as well. I like the idea behind the House of Mystery, and I really liked the idea that Swamp Thing could find it because he can connect with all plant life, even enchanted wood. The Cult of Cold Flame is definitely building up for something, but I can't tell if it's Trinity War, or whatever comes after Trinity War for Justice League Dark.

The best parts of the whole arc though definitely come from The Flash. I liked him coming to rescue Frankenstein, and it taking him a minute to realize Frank was a good guy. I like his response to discovering the Justice League Dark exists, being angry at first, then proud that these heroes are using the Justice League's name. I like him being a "man of science" put into a world of magic. I really hope that his line about wondering whether he's always been meant to be a freak comes back in Trinity War and that he's conflicted about fighting the Justice League Dark (which, for the record, is a really awful name, they should change it). Plus he has some pretty darn funny moments.

I only picked up Justice League Dark because Trinity War was coming up, and I haven't decided whether I'll keep reading it after that, but so far it's a lot better than what I read in that first trade (which I just found kinda boring and disjointed).

The Wake #2

SEXPANDHoly crap though, The Wake #2 is definitely the book of the week. I was tentatively optimistic about The Wake after the first issue, but it didn't really bring what I was looking for. The first issue was all set up, and very much the sort of thing you'd seen before, and it didn't really have any horror in it.

The Wake #2 though delivers on all that promise the first issue showed. First of all let me say that I really really like the art in this thing. A LOT. It's dark and eerie when it's supposed to be, but it's also really pretty and nice to look at. The scene with the Jellyfish, or the woman under the waterfall are strikingly gorgeous, but unsettling at the same time. I also really like that the first two covers form one imagine if you put them side by side, and I hope the whole series ends up doing that.

The idea behind the "mermaids," (an evolutionary split from around 5 million years ago) is really interesting (is this whole "humans being amphibious" theory a real thing, by the way? I'd never heard that before). The writing was top notch, and each character feels like they have their own unique voice. The design on the monsters actually makes the "mermaids" look super intimidating.

And the horror is actually pretty good in this issue. The visual of that kid puking water is really freaking creepy, and the bit I mentioned with the woman under the waterfall felt unsettling.

There were two minor complaints I had with this issue. The first is the out-of-chonology bit with the main character's son showing up. That's the opening of the issue, and that should be the closing. Ideally the structure of the issue would have been future bit -> them discussing the creatures -> woman under waterfall -> son. Instead, it's son -> discussing the creatures -> woman under waterfall -> future bit. Leaving you with that image of the son puking water (easily my favorite moment of the issue) would have been a lot better than leaving with the future bit, which, leading into my second complaint, is the worst thing about the book.

I won't call it a major flaw yet, because we're only two issues in and they might be building to something important, but as of the first two issues something like four pages have taken place in a far-flung post apocalyptic future, and nothing important has happened there yet. In fact, all it tells us is that something is going to go VERY BAD over the course of the series. That kind of frustrates me, since it's almost like they're spoiling their own plot twists.

Again, those are both minor nitpicks, and the second issue was extremely strong, overall. If you aren't reading The Wake yet, I strongly recommend picking the first two issues up.

Comic Book Review - The Movement #1

noreply@blogger.com (Zul) — Thu, 02 May 2013 07:06:00 +0000

The Movement's pitch is a simple one; what would Anonymous look like in a world with Superheroes? And to be honest, it's a really effective pitch. The group has been around in one form or another for a decade now, and yet it really has very little representation in fiction. It's a little bit unfortunate then, that the series actually just focuses on another super team. Mild Spoilers to follow.

I've actually heard The Movement compared to the Occupy movement more than I have to Anonymous, but truthfully I don't see that at all. The titular movement, "Channel M," fight corruption among the ranks of those who are meant to protect the people. In this first issue that means cops, but I think from the book's description that it applies to super-powered individuals who abuse their powers as well.

The book starts with two police officers offering to release a young couple (who were holding "scuzz," clearly the most dangerous of drugs) if the girl flashes them. Upon this utterance, a person in a solid silver mask (which clearly invokes the Guy Fawkes masks Anonymous uses) appears, and begins playing an audio recording of the cop's words. Soon a dozen or so others, all in the same featureless mask, appear and scare the cops off.

This is probably my favorite bit of the book. This is the part which sold me on the first issue. Random people with no powers coming together and helping each other out. Unfortunately, though understandably, this doesn't last.

It's hard to tell a story where the main character is a movement. I understand, and appreciate that. However, The Movement gets around this by focusing on a superteam who are a part of Channel M. The team consists of Katharsis, a girl with mechanical wings, Tremor, who can cause earthquakes, Mouse, who is "the prince of rats," and Virtue, whose powers are... Something psychic, I don't know, I'm a little unclear on that. I'm admittedly not familiar with any of these characters (I understand that at least some of them are returning characters) so I can't speak to characterization.

This first issue is pretty packed. It introduces us briefly to each character of the team, a young man who thinks he's possessed named Burden (his parents always called him that), two corrupt cop characters who get busted by the movement, Channel M themselves, the presence of a mysterious serial killer, and an unnamed police Captain who serves as our protagonist for the first half of the issue. This means that there really isn't much in the way of characterization for our team characters beyond perhaps a little bit from Virtue, and most of what characterization there is is given to Captain Captain.

The art is good throughout. Freddie Williams II's style relies more on caricatures than I would have expected from what seems to be a fairly serious series, exaggerating character features and expressions, but once you get used to the mild dissonance between the content and the style, it's quite good.

The dialog and writing is also good. I'm far less familiar with Gail Simone's work than I should be, but I have a feeling that those who like her work elsewhere will probably feel similarly about the work she does here.

Overall this was a solid first issue. It's a good introduction to the team and what they're fighting for, and the intro bit with the actual Movement was pretty great. I would have preferred focusing on Channel M from an outsiders perspective, such as the cop, seeing them fight corrupt cops and superheroes, and not providing us with the face that the super-team provides, but I can appreciate why they felt the need to do otherwise.

I do hope that in the future the series focuses heavily on the faceless masses that make up The Movement, and how those people fight corruption, because to me that's the most interesting idea within this first issue of The Movement. For a first issue though, it has some cool ideas, and could go some interesting places. I'll definitely be picking up the next issue.

Video Game Review - Journey

noreply@blogger.com (Zul) — Mon, 04 Mar 2013 16:22:00 +0000

Well I just reviewed an Xbox exclusive, I gotta get my system karma to balance out somehow.

Art games and I have an interesting relationship. You see, on the one hand I have no doubt that video games are a valid art form. On the other hand, if you ask me to rattle of a list of games which I consider to be art, it would sound something like "Bioshock, Shadow Of The Colossus, Portal, Mass Effect, The Walking Dead, Wind Waker." Each of those titles, for one reason or another, were not only able to tell a high quality, emotionally impacting story, but were able to specifically use the medium of video games to do so. None of those stories would work as well, or at all, if they were translated to film, or literature.

But likewise, none of those games are so-called "art games," a term which seems hazy at best in it's definition. I use the term to refer to small scale games, which primarily exist to tell a story interactively, and have little-to-no traditional gameplay. For example, Limbo, Dear Esther (ugh), The Stanley Parable (yay!), Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP, To The Moon, and so on and so forth. Now don't get me wrong, I like some art games quite a lot, To The Moon and The Stanley Parable especially, to use from that specific list. But I also find a lot of them tedious and insufferable.

The thing is, a lot of these art games seem to hide themselves in pretension, under the assumption that, to pull from a TV Tropes article, True Art Is Incomprehensible. That's a load of crap. Each of the games I listed as art games above can be easily accessed, and understood on at least a basic level. You can view Bioshock as a complex teardown of Randian philosophy if you want, or as a deconstruction of modern games themselves, and the choices therein, but you can easily play through the whole thing and see it simply as a sci-fi horror tale with an incredible plot twist. It works fantastically either way.

On the flip side, something like last year's completely intolerable Dear Esther spent the whole time making sure you knew how much smarter than you it was. "Here," the game seemed to say, "let me narrate to you in purple prose the entire time you try to explore this environment. Let me tell you a story, or perhaps several stories, instead of letting you discover things for yourself. Isn't it weird how I tell a different story, but not that different, every time you play? Don't you wish you were smart enough to understand the subtle nuances of my artistic merit there? Oh come on, you know you're dying to ask why you turn into a bird at the end. Wouldn't you like to know the answer? Wouldn't you like to understand? Well I'm afraid to say, you're just not smart enough to learn the answer. Sorry."

Folks, for that particular game, I'm quite confident in saying there was no answer. That game never had a real meaning behind it, it just threw a bunch of random garbage on the screen, and hoped you would be foolish enough to try to infer some meaning from it. It is to narrative, what the emperor's new clothes were to fashion. If there's one thing about "art" which I cannot stand, it is this sort of outright trickery.

Contrast this with something like the terrific To The Moon (which I dare not spoil for you here, GO PLAY IT), which had a coherent, easy to understand, but wonderfully emotional and impactful narrative. To The Moon is an example of an art game done right, in as much as it is not constantly hitting you with pretension. On the other hand though, while I do like To The Moon quite a lot, there wasn't that much impactful interaction there. I believe that To The Moon could have worked just as well as a flim, or book. Now there isn't necessarily anything wrong with that, but it does kind of make it harder for me to defend as an example of games as an art form.

Oh boy, I'm like seven paragraphs in and I haven't even mentioned the game I'm reviewing yet. That might be a new personal record.

The reason I say all of this, is that it's important for you to know what I mean when I say that Journey is perhaps the best example to date of an art game done right. That is to say, Journey has a coherent narrative, never holds up the pretense of being smarter than you, and the most emotionally impactful moments in it are literally only possible because it is a game.

Let's start from the beginning. What is Journey? Well, for starters, it's the most game-like of Thatgamecompany's productions to date. Unlike Flower, for example, which seems like what would happen if you gave a room full of game developers as many drugs as you physically could without killing them (and indeed, I suspect that the sentence "What would happen if you gave a room full of game developers as many drugs as you physically could without killing them?" might be the entire design doc for that one), Journey features a character, who you control with the left and right analog sticks, and are able to press a button to jump with. That's pretty much it, aside from one more button which allows you to sing a single note. Using these tools, you go on an absolutely gorgeous adventure through a desert.

Journey is a game about discovery. The game tells you very little, indeed even some of the controls which I mentioned above are never explicitly stated in the game. You must discover the controls, the story, and even the very game mechanics on your own. Well, not entirely on your own.

You see, Journey's biggest triumph is the way it makes you care about the other player. Journey is a multiplayer game, and I guarantee you it's unlike any online multiplayer you've ever played before. You see, at any time while you're playing the game (assuming you're hooked up to the internet while playing, which you really should be) another real player can suddenly and seamlessly drop into your game. The player has the same abilities as you do, and the two of you must figure out where you're going and how to get there together. The catch, however, is that the game gives you no means of communication. There is no voice chat, there is no text chat, there is no way to tell the other player anything other than by using the one-note singing, and through physically trying to catch their attention. It doesn't even tell you their PSN name until the end credits.

Now, this might sound like a gimmick, but if you're lucky enough as I was to get someone who's interested in playing through the entire game in one sitting with you, and who wants to discover these game mechanics, and the very story with you, then something amazing happens. Through these single notes and physical movements, you start to become very attached to your buddy. In fact, by the time the game ended, I was kind of sad to see him go. As the two of us struggled through the game (and I should add, the actual story to the game is pretty awesome too), trying as hard as we could to make it from the desert, to the top of a frozen mountain, our journey filled with peril, I began crafting my own narrative in my head; the only way these two could keep going, was to stay with each other.

This is the sort of thing which is nearly impossible to explain, but... You really need to play the game to understand what I'm talking about.

Now the other great thing about Journey is that it's utterly gorgeous. Seriously. It's one of the best looking games I've ever seen. Up there with Wind Waker.

Seriously. Rarely have I seen a more gorgeous game. Definitely the best looking game of last year, by a mile, no contest. Indeed, it's worth your time just to see the many, MANY jaw-droppingly gorgeous moments. The question is, is it worth your money? Here's where I kind of hesitate to recommend the game.

Don't get me wrong, Journey is a top-notch game, the experience is unparalleled. The problem, however, is that the entire game run about an hour an forty five minutes. Maybe two hours, if you get stuck somewhere, or reeeeally take your time.

Now those two hours are extremely peaceful, and a wonderful experience, but it still doesn't change the fact that this game is $15. That's a lot for a PSN game, and there are much longer, still very high quality games available for that price, or even cheaper. I got lucky, and ended up paying a mere $5 for my copy, and needless to say I feel very, very confident in my purchase. But at $15? It's going to be up to you whether you think a game that's less than two hours long is worth that.

The game does feature trophies, including several you probably won't get on the first playthrough (indeed, I encourage you not to even look at the trophy list until you've beaten the game, and just focus on exploration for the sake of exploration). At the end of the day though, it's going to be a personal choice. If you're willing to pay $15 for an extremely short, but incredibly high quality experience, then have at it. If you're going to feel bad paying that much money for such a short game, then perhaps wait for a sale. At the end of the day, $15 feels a little steep to me. Yes, I know it's no more than a trip to the movie theater typically is these days, but it still feels a little steep when compared to other games of a similar price on PSN.

Whether you play it now, or wait for another sale, I encourage you, without hesitation, to play Journey. It really is a stellar title, unlike anything I've ever played before.

Video Game Review - Halo 4

noreply@blogger.com (Zul) — Sat, 02 Mar 2013 06:51:00 +0000

There are only a few games which have truly become cultural touchstones. There are classics, recognized by virtually everyone, like Tetris, or Pong, there are beloved Nintendo franchises like Mario, which have attained recognition through sheer persistence, having been around for thirty years at this point, and there are juggernauts like World of Warcraft, or Call of Duty which pushed their way into pop culture through sheer numbers sold.

Halo falls into the latter category.

I do not own an Xbox. I have never owned an Xbox. As such, I've sort of missed out on the phenomenon which is the Halo series. I've followed it only through pop culture osmosis, or the occasional hour-long play session messing around in Forge with friends. Thus, when the opportunity presented itself to play through the entirety of the latest installment of the franchise with my cousin, I knew I had to to take advantage of it.

Halo 4, actually the seventh Halo game, picks up after... Well, I wish I could tell you. The game completely lacks a "Previous on Halo" feature to get me caught up on where we are. I know the basics only through the aforementioned pop culture osmosis, Master Chief is a super soldier, Cortana is a sexy blue lady, and the Covenant are bad for... Some reason. I don't know, the game begins with Master Chief coming out of stasis during a Covenant raid, but it's never explained who these strange dinosaur-men are, so I can only assume they're mad at humanity for displaying the bones of their ancestors, instead of providing them proper funerals. In their defense, if some aliens started exhuming my great granddaddy, I'd be a bit peeved too.

I am a bit confused by the presence of Covenant in this game at all, however. I don't know much about Halo, but I am pretty sure that the Covenant were the baddies of the first trilogy, bringing up the question of why there are so many of them in this game. And I mean, it's a lot. Either my knowledge of Halo lore is even worse than I realized, or you didn't quite "finish the fight" in Halo 3 after all.

Anyways, you fight off the Covenant boarding party just in time to get eaten by a giant metal planet of unknown origin. Unknown to me, that is. Cortana throws out the word "Forerunner" briefly, and acts as if I know what that means. To the game's credit, the name is pretty self explanatory; It turns out the Forerunners are basically the Protheans from Mass Effect, or if you'd rather, the Ancients from Stargate.

It might seem like I'm focusing a bit too hard on the lack of any sort of explanation for many plot elements, but I actually do feel that this is one of the game's biggest failings. This is supposed to be the start of a brand new Halo trilogy, created by a new developer, 343 Studios. It should encourage new players to jump in as much as possible, either by focusing on entirely new concepts, or by briefly explaining old concepts to new players through throwaway dialog ("We'll Chief, that looks like a Forerunner planet. They must have built it billions of years ago!") or through a simple "Previously" segment in front of the game.

That said, although I found it a little hard to follow, the story really isn't that bad. It's a perfectly serviceable sci-fi action story most of the time, with the rare glimpse of brilliance. I find the idea of A.I. rampancy (a degenerative condition A.I.s suffer from in the series after 7 years of service) to be especially interesting, and the all-too-rare moments where Cortana seems actually afraid of her fate are some of the best in the game. I do find it kind of funny that one of the first things 343 apparently decided to do with the franchise was to, *ahem*, accentuate certain aspects of Cortana.

I also appreciate the ways in which the game tries to humanize Master Chief. The idea of a super soldier struggling to come to terms with what he is, and whether he is a real person, or just a machine, is handled with an unexpected degree of sensitivity, and his lack of feeling and emotion works extremely well to contrast the story of the actual machine, Cortana, becoming too emotional. I do think that the Cortana rampancy storyline was put there as a pretty obvious set up for Dark Cortana as a villain in one or both of the next two games, but it here it works, so props for that.

The actual villain of this game is kind of lame though, specifically because he seemed to be of the evil for the sake of being evil variety, and didn't really seem to have much defined motivation beyond being generically bad to me. He looked cool though, kind of like Voldemort's more handsome brother. The end of the game, and specifically how you deal with him, are also disappointingly anti-climactic.

On a gameplay level, and mind you I say this as someone who very vocally does not like console shooters in general, Halo 4 controls extremely well. While I personally still find the controller to be too sluggish a method for player versus player combat, for the purposes of a campaign, it is perfectly functional. It moves like you want it to, and the guns are all very satisfying, and feel just powerful enough.

The campaign ran about 8 hours for me, which is a pretty good length for a FPS campaign. Unlike games with a similar length though, such as last year's Spec Ops: The Line, the game doesn't feel too long, and it's always keeping you engaged. There's no fluff. In fact, it's probably taken it a bit too far. In the end, the game actually suffers from a more mild form of the same issue I have with games like the Call of Duty franchise. The game is always set to eleven.

Do you know why Mass Effect has those ship sequences, where you talk to your crew? Yes, it builds characterization, but it's actually more important than just that. By providing you with those quiet moments, the moments where you're just talking to your crew, with no combat, and no action, the game is actually providing you with a moment to sit back, breath, and take in the action moments which just happened. If a game is constantly set to eleven, you get desensitized to it, and each explosion becomes exactly as interesting as the last. In all honesty, it gets boring. By providing you with quiet moments to contrast the big explosions, or epic story beats, it makes those big moments feel much more grand and exciting by comparison.

Halo 4 has none of those, and at the end of the day, it really hurts it. If this 8 hour game had added another 90 minutes, split throughout the game, which were just quiet character moments as characters run from point A to B, I think that both the action, and he story, would have been much better for it.

I greatly enjoyed my time with Halo 4. I think it is a very well made game, with a decent story. As far as console shooters go, it's one of the better ones out there. While I'd still take a Mass Effect story any day, it's clear that there are, at least, some people at 343 who care about telling a good story in an interesting universe. Consider this game to have my official seal of approval.

My Week In Gaming - 2-3-13

noreply@blogger.com (Zul) — Mon, 04 Feb 2013 06:00:00 +0000

SHLEEPY DAWGS (Sleeping Dogs)

Do you like Chinese action movies (Jackie Chan, Bruce Lee, etc.)? Do you like Grand Theft Auto-styled open world games? Do you like the Batman: Arkham series' combat? Do you like excellently crafted stories? Do you like things which are awesome? If the answer to one or more of these things is "yes," then you absolutely need to play Sleeping Dogs.

This game is stellar. I like almost everything about it,(though it isn't quite as flowing as B:AA or B:AC), to the GORGEOUS graphics, to the setting of Hong Kong, a place you don't see often in video games. It's everything an open world game should be, the cars handle well, the world feels alive, and fully realized, there's a lot of stuff to do, and it's surprisingly well written. The story is actually exceptionally well done so far, and I'm becoming invested in the characters.

It's hard to believe this almost didn't come out at all, especially since it feels so polished. The game controls nearly-perfectly, and it's just... Excellent. It's just a great open world game. It's got a unique, visually stunning location, it's got a ton of great ideas, and it executes them all wonderfully. It's probably one of the best games of that genre I've ever played, but even if you aren't a fan of the GTA clone, I could still recommend it for the combat, or the story alone. It's a wonderful game, top marks across the board, consider this an honorary position on my top ten games of 2012 list.

There are so many little details, and polish. Like the fact that after beating up enemies in some parts of the city, if you stick around long enough, paramedics will come to try and save them. Or the way Wei's head will bob along to music in a club.

Seriously, if you're a fan of the genre, I cannot recommend this enough. Even if you aren't, there's enough great content in here to merit a second look. Top notch, across the board.

Iron Brigade

THUMBS UP BUTTON

GOTY EVERY YEAR

The Secret World

Yep, this game is still pretty awesome, and is still crazy. I'm most of the way through the second zone, or area or whatever (still in Solomon Island) and... Yeah. It's pretty great. The boss of the first dungeon is Cthulu. Where do you go from there?

My Week In Gaming - 1-27-13

noreply@blogger.com (Zul) — Mon, 28 Jan 2013 03:35:00 +0000

Closure

This is definitely one of the more creative puzzle platformers I've seen in a while, and I really dig it. It came up with a really interesting concept, and sticks to it, doing all sort of interesting things. I'm roughly a quarter of the way through it, and I've only played like an hour, maybe an hour and a half, so it seems short, but the puzzles are fairly challenging so far, so I kinda dig it.

Recettear: An Item Shop Tale

I really think this is a fun spin on the typical RPG ideas. For those who don't know, the spin is that instead of it being the typical RPG story, you're the person running the item shop, which makes it a sort of blending between a JRPG and a Tycoon game.

It's a bit unpolished, but I really like what I've played so far.

Super Hexagon

OH MY GOD THIS GAME IS AMAZING BUY IT IMMEDIATELY

I've beaten the first two settings, Hexagon (Hard) and Hexagoner (Harder), and it's probably my favorite Android release to date. PLAY IT. NOW. THROW YOUR MONEY AT THE PERSON WHO MADE IT, HE ALSO MADE VVVVVV!

The Secret World

Finally an MMO which isn't just completely World of Warcraft, and is instead just mostly World of Warcraft. I kid, I kid. The comparisons are actually more apt to games like Champions Online than they are to WoW, and even then there's a lot of stuff that truly makes the game unique.

I picked it up for $10 on sale, since I've been wanting to try it ever since the abolished the monthly subscription, and I've played a little bit of it. I really like it! It's not perfect, but it's enough of a breath of fresh air that I'm willing to overlook it's shortcomings.

The first thing I really like about The Secret World which sets it apart from other MMO's I've tried (and I've tried a lot) is their "horizontal, not vertical" approach to character building. There are (technically) no character levels. Instead, after you gain so much XP you are awarded with either a skill or ability point which you can use to purchase abilities, or increase your skills. Due to the way this works, it doesn't take very long to max a skill out, but eventually you'll be able to max out everything (as best I can tell). That's a really interesting approach to take, and one which seems pretty well done.

The flip side to this though is probably the game's biggest weakness I've encountered so far. Because of the lack of a simple "level" system, it becomes a lot more difficult to figure out exactly where you should be, and how hard things around you are at a glance. In a game like WoW, for example, I can easily tell how much stronger than me a monster is simply looking at a number. That monster is level 26, I'm level 30, so I know I can kill it easily. That monster is level 50 and I'm level 13, so I should RUN AWAY. The Secret World indicates this with more... Abstract icons. Oh, so that monster is three blue dots. Well that doesn't help. That monster is one white skull. Does that mean I shouldn't fight it? There is an order to it, but it's kind of hard to figure out. I even looked at an FAQ about it, and I'm still confused. What missions are actually your level and when you're ready to do things like take on a new dungeon or go to a new area are equally difficult to decipher, especially since the recommended scale (missions will be labeled very easy, easy, normal, hard, very hard, or devastating is based on both the skills you currently have equipped, and the gear you currently have equipped, which means that the scale just seems sort of wonky and unreliable. At some point I wonder if it wouldn't have been better suited to simply assign arbitrary level numbers based on how many skills you've acquired, similar to Skyrim.

A non-combat related thing which sets the game apart is that some of the missions are actually adventure-game style puzzles, and really difficult ones at that. Just the fact that they put something like that into the game to break up the monotony of combat (not that the combat is monotonous) makes the game a million times more interesting, in my opinion. That said, I'm kind of torn about their lack of inclusion of some sort of notebook into the user interface (especially when they already have an internet browser in it). On the one hand, it would be a great utility, and one which seems like a no-brainer to include. On the other hand, the game actually demands that you take notes yourself, and have a notebook on hand at all times, which is something I haven't seen a game do since Myst, and as far as I'm concerned, it's a pretty cool way to engage the player, and get them more into the conspiracy theory setting.

I really enjoy the tone of the game. The first area (which I'm, admittedly, not very far into) actually has a quite eerie atmosphere, and it's fun to see an MMO which isn't either medieval fantasy, or sci-fi. The writing seems pretty competent so far, though the main character being mute while others are talking to him makes me appreciate The Old Republic that much more. Their kitchen sink attitude of "EVERYTHING is true" makes for an interesting world, because it really does seem to mean that no kinds of monsters, from the typical zombies, to ancient golems, to Lovecraftian nightmares, are off limits.

With that said, I do find it kind of disappointing that the very first things you're fighting in the game with all these exotic monster in it is... Well, zombies. They're kind of interesting zombies, and eventually they're SEA MONSTER ZOMBIES, but when I first got to the zone, excited to see the cool creatures they had for me to fight, my initial response was... Oh. Great. And I say that as someone who likes zombies!

The game limits you to being able to use a certain number of skills at once (though you can swap them out on the fly when you're out of combat), so you need to think carefully about which ones you're actually slotting in at a given time. The game has recommended "decks" (builds) which give you some idea of how to build, but you don't need to follow them. Right now my guy is a blood mage with a shotgun and nothing to lose.

Oh and also, you get your powers because a magic bee flies into your mouth while you're sleeping. I'm not making that up, that's true and accurate.

My Week In Gaming - 1-20-13

noreply@blogger.com (Zul) — Mon, 21 Jan 2013 06:19:00 +0000

The Witcher 2 (PC)

So I finished The Witcher 2. It's a really good game! I'd recommend it in a minute to any RPG fans.

There are a few caveats, of course. The stealth sections, for one thing, are really, really terrible. Geralt can't seem to decide whether he wants to jump into cover, or dance around cover for a few seconds, which can lead to you getting screwed over pretty badly in certain sections. The save system is also very strange. You don't get access to any files of any kind, you just get the option to save, and it makes a new file. I'm a little unclear on just how it works, sometimes it would save over old files, other times it wouldn't.

Also, the game gives you some items early on, gives you no indication that they'll be important (beyond one of them being a really nice upgrade for the point you get it), and then if you hold onto them until near the end, you get the best items in the game. So that kinda sucks.

But overall it's got an interesting, fun combat system, a really good storyline with lots of political intrigue (although it can sometimes be hard to keep all the kingdoms and empires straight, I imagine having read the original Polish novels would probably help with that). One thing I like about it is that, for the most part, the monsters you encounter aren't the typical orcs and goblins you'd expect from a fantasy RPG, they're weird things I've never heard of, like Nekkers, or a Kayran. I don't know if those are inventions of the series, or monsters I'd just never heard of (possibly from Polish fiction?), but it's an appreciated change.

So yeah. Bring on The Witcher 3, I'm ready to see what's next, especially with such a cliffhanger ending.

Snapshot

This game is pretty cool. It's a 2D indie platformer (I'm surprised no one ever thought of that before), with the "hook" being that you can take pictures of items within the environment, and move them to different places to solve puzzles. It seems pretty awesome so far, I'm about halfway through the first world.

Life Is Magic (Android)

So this is a pretty neat phone game. It's a lite-RPG, but it uses the GPS on your phone to map the area you can explore, and fight monsters in, as the real-world area where you are. You also buy items and gain "influence" with nearby real-world shops (for example, I have a nearby weapon store which is a Wal-Mart). If you get enough influence with a store to be the top person, you get a discount on it.

What makes it work though, is that it's actually a really fun game. It has a turn-based combat system, and you can earn mana by casting spells, in order to use more powerful spells (or power up ones you can cast). This is a slightly different take on turn-based combat, closer resembling something like Magic the Gathering than Final Fantasy, which is a very nice choice.

That said, there are negatives to it. It features a Farmville-style "play for so long, then pay a dollar to play more now, or wait an hour for energy to recharge" system (though it's not nearly as bad as Farmville or Mafia Wars), and I do wish it explained a bit more of how it works, as a lot of what I've figured out about what makes the game fun is, well, stuff I had to figure out. I also wish it leaned more heavily into the actual RPG mechanics, as thus far "levels" only seem to be arbitrary barriers on what spells you can cast, and what items you can equip. I would really have liked a talent system, or some sort of point-allocation system, to give you more interesting choices.

With those minor complaints out of the way, this seems like an incredibly solid phone game so far. I quite like it.

Dead Rising 2 (PC)

Man, there is some truly outstanding stuff in this game, it's just a shame there's so much awful mixed in. A mediocre, by the numbers zombie story, some of the worst boss battles this side of Deus Ex: Human Revolution, and an absolutely grueling endgame all make it hard to enjoy the genuinely fun bit where you're running around, duck-taping things together and cutting through large swathes of zombies to get through them, and saving all the crazy survivors around the Fortune City strip.

Look, I'm not looking for every game to make the same choices. There are plenty of games out there, and there's plenty of room for games to take chances. I actually love the 3-day-cycle idea (and for that matter, Majora's Mask), and how it's implemented here, but a lot of the things they do in this game just don't work. The psychopath battles are terrible, and not because they're hard, because they're unfair. Most of the psychopaths have abilities which straight-up stunlock you. I appreciate that they're there to be fought at higher levels, on your third or fourth cycle, but even then they just don't work very well. They aren't fun, they're unfair.

That said, the stuff that I like about that game, I really really like about that game. The combo weapon designs are all delightfully crazy (IT'S A WHEELCHAIR, BUT THE CHAIR PART IS A LAWNMOWER!) and there's just something delightful about all the various things you can kill zombies with in the game. The good stuff is good enough for me to overlook the bad stuff, but if the bad stuff weren't there, or were actually well done, then this game would be outstanding.

Super Hexagon (Android)

And as a counter to those who may think that I dislike the psychopath fights in Dead Rising 2 simply because they are hard, I give you Super Hexagon, a game which is extremely hard, and at the same time, fair. This game is outstanding. It's incredibly simple, but exceptionally well executed, and unlike Dead Rising's fake difficulty, when you lose, it's because you screwed up. It's a skill based game, and an extremely well done one at that.

Also, the music is pretty great.

My Week In Gaming - 1-13-13

noreply@blogger.com (Zul) — Mon, 14 Jan 2013 06:14:00 +0000

I thought I'd write a bit about what I've been playing this week. So here we are.

Star Wars: The Old Republic

You know, while at first glance, the free-to-play option for SWTOR looked like a pile of garbage, I've actually taken a closer look, and found that it is, in fact, a pile of garbage. But a slightly less trashy pile-of-garbage.

Most of the features of the game which you have to subscribe to get, or buy separately are actually achieveable through gameplay in an interesting way. When you buy the unlock off of the in-game real money store, you actually get an item which you can use to unlock stuff. The trick is, these items are not bound to you, so you can sell them to other players for in game money. That means that, if you're willing to grind out some credits on a level 50, you can actually unlock most of the stuff you'll want through normal gameplay. Of course, the one thing you can't unlock without subscribing is an unlimited credit (or other currency) cap, which means you can't buy anything worth more than 350,000 credits. It's not perfect, but it works.

I did actually get my second level 50 in the game over the course of a few weeks. It was an Imperial Agent, and let me just say... Wow. The gap in quality between the storylines is never more evident than when you play the IA storyline. That content is absolutely the best stuff I've seen in that game, and I've played a whole lot of it. The Consular story (my other 50 is a consular) is... Well, it's not very good. It's ok, but none of the companions are particularly interesting, and the story itself doesn't feel very consequential, or interesting. The IA storyline, by contrast, is awesome, and all the companions are super interesting.

It's a really rough problem. The IA storyline is absolutely great, it's just kind of a shame that the best parts of it are hidden behind hundreds of hours of middling-to-good world content. Perhaps I'm just tired of that style of MMO, I don't know.

The Witcher 2: Enhanced Edition

I played 11 hours of the first Witcher, which sounds like a lot, but is actually hardly anything, considering the game could reach something like 50-60 hours if you were trying to complete all the side quests.

So now I'm a good way into The Witcher 2, and aside from a weird crash-to-desktop issue I'm having (I think it has something to do with the memory in my computer, I'm not sure), it seems to be a better game across the board. The overall storyline is actually something I care about, the voice acting on Geralt isn't intolerable this time, the graphics are outstanding, the game feels more cinematic, it plays better... It's not all that dissimilar from the jump from Mass Effect to Mass Effect 2.

I'm very fond of the first Mass Effect for a lot of reasons, but none of them are the part where I have to actually play it. The shooting had some good ideas (which I wish they hadn't dropped for the sequels) but poor implementation, the interface was godawful, and the conversations all had a very going through the motions feel to them, and even though the story was outstanding (I still think the reveal about Sovereign is the best twist in the entire series), it felt very rough. Then Mass Effect 2 came along, made the shooting better, gave us a usable interface, and actually had the conversations and cutscenes animate something other than a person shaking their hands forward, or rubbing the back of their neck, and it was amazing.

So yeah. The Witcher 2 ain't half bad.

Professor Layton and the Unwound Future

Oh Professor Layton, you're just so charming. There's just so many things to love about you. From your gorgeous art style, to the way you always talk about being "a true gentleman," to, of course, the way everyone in your universe is completely crazy about puzzles.

This game features a mob who rules London with an iron fist, by making anyone who crosses them solve puzzles! That's not something I made up! That happens! There is a line of dialog which literally says "I'm going to have to teach you a lesson the old fashioned way, by forcing you to solve this puzzle!"

Least intimidating street gang since the Jets and the Sharks.

Super Mario 3D Land

Yep, that sure is a Mario game all right. Turns out they can still make a pretty good one of those.

So that's what I've been playing this week, and a few brief thoughts on everything. I hope you enjoyed hearing my insane ramblings, and maybe I'll do this again sometime.

The Third Annual Wherein I Rant Awards - 2012

noreply@blogger.com (Zul) — Tue, 01 Jan 2013 02:51:00 +0000

Wow, time for one of these end of year wrap up posts already, huh? Well, it's sure been an interesting year. I stopped updating, I lied and said I was going to start updating again, some other... Stuff... Happened... In any case, it's not important. What is important, though, is my opinion on 2012's movies and video games! It's been an... Interesting year for those too. I've been calling 2012 the year of surprises. The Avengers surprised everyone by being one of the biggest movies ever, Joss Whedon surprises the studio by proving that he can make money for them, some of the biggest games of the year come right out of nowhere, not even having been announced when the year began... But all of that is relative. It doesn't matter how big the surprise is, how good is the surprise? And that's what I'm here to talk about, the best video games and movies of the year. You guys ready? All right, here we go.

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Film

Best Film

5 - The Dark Knight Rises

While the film isn't as good as The Dark Knight, and is indeed probably the weakest of the Nolan trilogy, I still loved it. The pitch-perfect casting which all three films benefited from, as well as a story which is really gripping if you don't think about it too hard, helped me really enjoy the movie as I was watching it, even if I did immediately pick out half a dozen plot holes as soon as I left the theater. Borrowing from several very recognizable Batman storylines helped my inner comic book nerd be satisfied, and the film features, in my opinion, the best version of Catwoman ever put on screen, large or small.

Batman Begins and The Dark Knight are both better films, but The Dark Knight Rises was good enough to close out the trilogy, and even the worst Nolan Batman film is better than most other stuff out there. I had a really good time with it.

4 - Wreck-It Ralph

Wreck-It Ralph sold itself with tons and tons of video game cameos in the commercial, and while it has quite a few of those (which I appreciated, being the lifelong gamer that I am), the reason the movie works is because it's a love letter to gaming far beyond that. The way it pays tribute to the little things about gaming was something I really appreciated, and the fact that it was a fine film, with a lot of heart, on top of that, was just icing on the cake.

3 - The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey was a film which I was very excited about, but also very nervous about. The fact that they were splitting The Hobbit, not a long book on it's own, into three very long films was enough to make me wary, but so far the seem to be pulling it off.

The added material works most of the time, although you have to accept that the film is a series of short vignettes set in Middle Earth which just happen to tell the story of The Hobbit as a framing device.

Also, side note, the 48fps version of the film looked incredible, and I don't care what anyone says. It's good to see progress actually, you know, progressing.

2 - The Cabin In the Woods

I've mentioned this before, but really, I can't say much more. Cabin In The Woods is an incredible movie, but if I tell you why, it ruins a lot of the fun. Just, give it a try some time.

1 - The Avengers

Again, The Avengers is a film I've mentioned before. It's simply fantastic. The film felt like both a Joss Whedon product, and the perfect Avengers film, and really, what more could you ask for? Everyone saw this already, but man, it's so good. Just... So, so good.

Gaming

Game Of The Year:

10 - Spec Ops: The Line

Spec Ops: The Line is a game I don't think anyone saw coming. Not that people didn't realize it was coming out, but because all the leadup made it appear to be just another generic modern military third-person shooter. When the game actually released, and turned out to actually be a brutal deconstruction of the modern military shooter though, and on top of that, one with an absolutely insane storyline, it took a lot of people by surprise.

I actually only recently got around to playing this one, and I'm glad I did. It does a lot of really interesting things with it's story, and while the risks it takes don't always play out, and it stumbles in a few too many important spots for me to really love it, I respect that it actually tried to deal with such mature themes, when most modern military shooters go out of their way to avoid them.

My biggest problems come in to the fact that the game is really just not any fun to play. The difficulty is screwed up (I recommend just playing through on easy to see the story, I struggled through most the game on normal, dealing with bullet sponge heavy enemies, until I just gave up because I was so bored of the combat). I've heard some claim that the game being un-fun was part of the "point," and I'm not sure I'm convinced of that.
The game is also gorgeous, especially when set to the "vibrant" color scheme. It's set in Dubai, which has been hit by multiple sandstorms, so at times it falls into the "brown is realistic" problem many shooters do, but when it hits you with a great vista, it was the prettiest game I played all year. In addition to this, the way the main character and his squad members are transformed throughout the game, going from being a very restrained, protocol-following soldiers, into obscenity hurling, vicious men, filled with white hot rage, was incredible.

I'd definitely recommend giving this one a look.

9 - The Darkness II

I never played the original The Darkness, and I never really felt compelled to. It being a console exclusive when I'm primarily a PC Gamer (though I do own several consoles) kind of steered me off, and while I heard decent things about it, there's really only a few things people tend to remember about it, and nearly all of them involve Jenny. The part where you can watch all of To Kill A Mockingbird on TV with her, and the part where she dies are the two I hear cited most often, specifically.

So I was actually quite surprised when I bought The Darkness II on PC for a pittance, and had a lot of fun with it... For all of five or so hours. While the game is unfortunately short, what's there is undeniably entertaining. The darkness powers are all really fun, the executions are satisfyingly brutal, and the characters are... Well, the characters who actually get fleshed out are pretty solid.

Even though the story was overly predictable (and done much better in the Buffy episode "Normal Again," for the record), and I literally predicted the post-credits twist halfway through the game, the story beats themselves are done competently enough not to get in the way of the game itself.

If you give The Darkness II a chance, and a few hours, however, you'll find a very entertaining experience, and there's something to be said for a game which can be gone through in a few hours, and be reflected back on as being pretty darn fun.

8 - Super Monday Night Combat

I really, really liked the first Monday Night Combat, and it's player-versus-player, third-person-shooter take on the tower defense genre. Now, Super Monday Night Combat not only attacked a new genre, the MOBA (or Dota-like, if you'd rather), but a new business model, by launching as a free-to-play game, with all of the character classes unlockable lots of play, or by paying some money (essentially, the League of Legends model).

Super Monday Night Combat is an incredibly fun take on the genre, is extremely fun to play, and is actually really funny (the first time you hear the lines, which are inevitably repeated far too many times). The classes have tons of variety, but none of them felt incredibly overpowered, and each required skill (albeit some more than others) to play effectively. It's some of the most fun I had with multiplayer this year, and if you haven't tried it yet, it's free, so go try it out, it's a lot of fun.

7 - FTL - Faster Than Light

Perhaps no game signifies 2012 better than FTL - Faster Than Light. Not only was the game made via a successful Kickstarter, a trend which only began this year, but it is an incredibly ambitious game, like many of the games you'll see further up this list. It is, in it's own way, entirely about player choice, as are the top three game on my list, which was a huge theme for games this year, although it's

The game is essentially the Star Trek game I've always wanted. It lets you take the roll of the captain (well, controller of the captain, along with other crew members) of a space ship on the run from the rebel forces, with the only plans which will let you defeat the rebels, blah, blah, blah, generic science fiction story.

The reason to play this game, is because it lets you command nearly everything about the small ship you're on, during space battles, and just general space combat. Every time you jump to a new beacon, you'll get some sort of random event. Sometimes they're hostile (Slavers are attacking you!), sometimes they're neutral (A merchant wants to sell you some stuff), or sometimes nothing of consequence happens at all. As you travel the galaxy, you can build up your ship in all sorts of ways, focusing on weapons, or shields, and upgrading them with scrap, or using the scrap as currency to buy new items or crew members. During attacks, you can have your crew attempt to fight off boarding parties, or open up the airlocks for the rooms the boarding party is in, and vent the atmosphere, suffocating them. You can destroy ships, or send your own crew in to disable them, and defeat their crew, giving you more stuff.

The sheer amount of tactics which appear in the game is astounding, and the game is incredibly fun to play. Unfortunately, a few mechanics that I just didn't click with prevented me from putting it any higher up on this list. The rebel fleet is constantly getting nearer to you, and as a result, you have to keep constantly progressing toward an end goal. The result is that, by the time you finally start to feel built up, you inevitably reach the extremely difficult final boss, which I have yet to defeat.

I hope to see improvement upon this in a sequel, letting me take my time, in more of an open world. As it is, FTL is a fantastic game, with a few incredibly disappointing caveats. Definitely give it a look, especially if you're a science fiction fan.

6 - Rayman: Jungle Run

The only iOS/Android title to feature on my list, Rayman: Jungle Run is a runner released by Ubisoft, using the same engine and art assets as last year's extremely good Rayman: Origins. Now let me be clear, this is not an endless runner, it's a runner. This means that, while you don't have full control of your character (only having the ability to jump, hover, and punch, while constantly running forward), there are still goals beyond "run as fast as you can," as there are 40 levels (50 with the recently released free update), each with a set number of Lums (collectibles), and with an end goal. 4 of the levels are "Land of the Livid Dead" levels, which are extremely challenging, and only available after meeting a set number of Lums collected.

While I am typically extremely off put by runners (I can't stand the "endless runner" genre, and I find them an utter chore to play), I had an extremely good time with Rayman: Jungle Run, partly due to the inventive, and entertaining level design (though it should be noted, I recommend playing by trying to collect all the Lums, as the game is extremely easy otherwise), and partly due to the incredible presentation. The art assets are just as GORGEOUS as they were in last year's release, the music (which is primarily taken from the Rayman: Origins soundtrack) is fantastic, and the world of Rayman is as zany as always.

As someone who doesn't like this genre of game, this one is so well made, I didn't care, and couldn't help but have a blast with it. Me putting this on my list, and especially so high up, and above such good games, should speak for itself. I'm not the kind of guy who plays a ton of games on my phone, but this is one you definitely shouldn't overlook. Plus, I could listen to that perfect score music all day. HOLY CRAP IT'S SO GOOD! I realize it's from Rayman: Origins, but I kind of want to call that, like, 15 second loop, song of the year anyway. So, so good.

5 - Torchlight 2

I liked the original Torchlight, but I had a few, very specific, very large problems with it. The repetitive, eventually boring environments, the absurdly overpowered Alchemist class, the terrible, terrible final boss fight, and the lack of co-op all eventually put me off of the otherwise entertaining experience. Torchlight 2 solved all of these problems, albeit coming with it's own set of them.

The environments are more varied this time, the classes and their powers more well-balanced, and the game is a blast to play co-op with a friend. The world feels bigger, and although you're going down a set path, it doesn't quite feel that way, since you're in an overworld, not just descending deeper and deeper into a cave.

Despite it's almost non-existent story, Torchlight 2 triumphs by making the player feel powerful, and with all the different classes, and randomized areas, there's tons of replay value. Back when I was playing it near launch, Veteran, which I was playing on, seemed to be pretty messed up, however, with the difficulty curve being way out of whack. That may have been fixed, I haven't checked, but points were taken off for that. Still, that was a minor complaint, and Torchlight 2 is a great game. Definitely give it a look if it's your kind of thing.

4 - They Bleed Pixels

By 2012, you wouldn't be remiss for ignoring every indie, 2D, retro graphics platformer to come out, since there are about 8 released every day. Still, when I gave They Bleed Pixels a try despite that, I was really pleasantly surprised.

Not only is They Bleed Pixels extremely challenging, but unlike games like Super Meat Boy (which I also really like), the keyboard controls actually work well enough for me to make it through the game, despite their warnings that you should use a gamepad. They Bleed Pixels is an extremely challenging, extremely fun 2D platformer bathed in the Cthulu mythos. It also has a very well made combat system, which lets you kill enemies with various moves, and build up your score by executing combos. After getting so many points, you can actually earn checkpoints, which you can drop anywhere in the world where you're able to stand still for a moment, or, if you think you're good enough, you can refrain from dropping your checkpoint for a large point (or "pint", if you'd rather), bonus. It's a clever idea, and one unlike anything I can think of in other games. The checkpoint system lets you drop checkpoints before, or after sections you've found difficult, and it's really well executed.

On top of that, the incredibly difficult, very well designed levels are a blast to play, if you're good enough. They're far, far longer than something like Super Meat Boy's, which helps set it apart from games like that, even if it obviously took a lot of inspiration from them. This one comes highly recommended.

3 - XCOM: Enemy Unknown

XCOM: Enemy Unknown sure was a surprise this year, wasn't it? Not only was the game not even announced when the year began, but XCOM, the first person shooter which had next-to-nothing to do with the actual old turn-based strategy series was much maligned. Now, all of the sudden, the shooter has disappeared (presumably undergoing some heavy retooling), and the strategy game, made by the kings of turn-based strategy, Firaxis, has come out, and oh boy, it is glorious.

XCOM: Enemy Unknown is a tense, difficult, highly entertaining game. While I've never played the old ones, so I can't speak to how it treats the franchise, on it's own, the game is wonderful. Losing soldiers, especially those you had begun to build up, and named or customized.

The enemies were all extremely well designed, the upgrades were all crucial, and yet you simply couldn't get all of them, at least early on. You were sure to lose people, and since death was permanent, it really meant something (R.I.P. Captain Machismo, my first heavy, your facial hair will live on in folktale and legend). The actual story of the game itself was simplistic, but that left plenty of room for letting you create stories about what was going on yourself. The game is fantastic at letting you do that.

The game does eventually suffer from maps being repeated a bit too often, and there are (or at least, were when I was playing) quite a few bugs which hurt the game, but the game overcomes those things, to be one of the most incredible gaming experiences all year.

2 - Mass Effect 3

It's a real shame that any time I have to talk about Mass Effect 3, an absolutely phenomenal game, I have to use the disclaimer "other than the last ten minutes." Let's think about that, shall we? The Mass Effect trilogy was a hundred hours of near perfection, and the last ten minutes left such a bad taste in my mouth that I try to pretend they never happened, because they retroactively make everything that came before them worse.

There's very little to be said about the ending of Mass Effect 3 that hasn't been said already, so let me be brief. I didn't like it. It didn't work on a lot of fundamental storytelling levels, it felt rushed, the extended cut was essentially butting a bandage on a mortal wound, and "Leviathan" probably would have fixed most of my issues with it, were it not for the fact that it, you know, WAS PAID DOWNLOADABLE CONTENT. That's the biggest load of garbage I've ever seen, and genuinely breached the trust I had with Bioware.

That said, holy crap, Mass Effect 3 is an amazing game. The high points of Mass Effect 3 are easily the best moments in the entire franchise. The story is great. The setpieces are breathtaking. The quiet character moments are among the best the series has seen. The combat is the best it's ever been. You get to see all of your favorite Mass Effect characters, and see what's happened to all of them. You get to solve some of the biggest problems in the Mass Effect universe. You go to incredible locations. The game looks incredible (I'd easily say it's the best looking game on this list, other than the occasional odd looking human character).

My only complaint, aside from, as I said, an ending which Bioware should be absolutely ashamed of, was that the side missions were picked up in an incredibly halfhearted way, and completed as such.

The game also features multiplayer which, despite all odds, is absolutely fantastic. I do, admittedly, have some complaints with how the unlock system works, and would have preferred a store which let you choose unlocks, perhaps tied to your persistent N7 levels. Of course, the flipside of that is, the store (which, for the record, never requires you to spend a dime on unlocks, if you're willing to sink lots of time into the game) seems to have made them enough money that each multiplayer expansion, of which there have been several, all high quality, has been released for free. I think it's the best "horde mode" I've ever seen in a game.

It's a shame all anyone talks about from Mass Effect 3 seems to be the ending, because while the ending is a pile of hot garbage, the rest of the game is wonderful. If it hadn't been for that lackluster ending, this would have been an easy pick for my number one slot, because the game is just so utterly fantastic, and was a great ending to the trilogy... Up until the actual ending for the trilogy.

Mass Effect 3 is a great game. Not a good game, a great game. Aside from it's last ten minutes, I can't say enough good things about it (and I'm still playing the multiplayer all these months later). It's just a shame it had to end on such a sour note.

1 - The Walking Dead

Dear God... Dear God... The Walking Dead is unlike anything I've ever played. It's such an emotionally draining experience. It forces you with choices which, unlike many games with choices, don't have a clear right-or-wrong answer. It makes you care about characters, and then mercilessly kills them off. It's the first to really take advantage of the episodic method of storytelling, to the point where playing the episodes as they were released was, in my opinion, the best way to play them.

It tells a crazy story, in a horrible world. Yes, there are zombies, but just like the other form of The Walking Dead fiction, this story is about humans. For my money though, this is the best The Walking Dead there's ever been, and that's as someone who really likes the comics, and likes what he's seen of the TV Series.

The Walking Dead, while oppressive, and bleak, and tragic, is also a beautiful experience to have. The fact that it lets you-- that it makes you care about these fictional people so much, is utterly astounding.

If you haven't played The Walking Dead yet, you need to do so. It's an incredible experience, and a great story. There are a lot of reasons why I loved this game so much, but rather than describe them, I'll leave you with this: Play The Walking Dead. It's the first adventure game I've really, truly loved in a very long time.

The Significance of The Walking Dead (Spoiler Free Edition)

noreply@blogger.com (Zul) — Sat, 08 Dec 2012 23:06:00 +0000

I really like Telltale's The Walking Dead. In fact, it's probably my favorite game of the year, and that's saying a lot. It's easily Telltale's best game, and I really liked Puzzle Agent, Poker Night At The Inventory, and what I played of Back To The Future. The Walking Dead is a game which, I feel, finally gets everything right that Telltale, and the video game industry in general, have been trying to get right for so long. I'd even go so far as to say that The Walking Dead feels like a progression of the medium.

For those who don't know, The Walking Dead, by Telltale Games, is an adventure game tie-in to Robert Kirkman's extremely popular comic series The Walking Dead. I say tie-in because, unlike the television show, Telltale's The Walking Dead is not an adaptation of the comic books. It tells a different story, with different characters (or occasional appearances by characters from the comic), set in the same world with the same zombies. It's even considered canonical with the comics, as a matter of fact.

The major "hook" of the game is that it presents you with extremely difficult choices, and gives you virtually no time to select them. Unlike the morality systems in games like Mass Effect series, though, these aren't black and white, right or wrong choices. In most cases, there's no "good" answer, and both options outright suck. The spirit of the game is simple, showing you the cold reality of what this sort of apocalypse would be like. Even those who jokingly (or seriously), say that they're ready for the zombie apocalypse to hit, will find themselves faced with situations they've never considered. And, even more interestingly, the series drama doesn't come purely from the zombies, it primarily comes from the people.

The episodic format for games has been around for a while, but I don't think it had really been done right until now. Telltale's experimented with it with things like Back to the Future, and that was all right, but splitting it into episodes like they did, didn't really add anything to the game that splitting it into chapters wouldn't have achieved. Poker Night at the Inventory was presented as the pilot for a new series, but that was two years ago, and nothing more has come of it. Even huge companies like Valve struggle with the format, as evidenced by the infamous lack of Half-Life 2: Episode 3.

The Walking Dead, however, actually feels like it benefits from the episodic format. The weight of each choice the series faces you with is so heavy that, to be honest, I felt like I needed the month long break between episodes. Each time I finished an episode, I felt like the worst person possible. In fact, this is the first episodic series I've played where my advice would be, even if you've waited for the full series to come out, give yourself some time between each episode to decompress, and reflect upon the choices you've made. I wouldn't have said that for the episodes of Half-Life 2, or for the episodes of Back to the Future. While it was fine that those game came in the episodic format, the episodic format did not inherently enhance the experience, as I felt it did with The Walking Dead. In fact, in the future, I hope Telltale sticks to the episodic format even more strictly, keeping a solid month by month release schedule, and sticks to it (although I realize why they would be hesitant to do so).

But what really makes The Walking Dead so special, in my opinion, and what makes it beat out great titles like Mass Effect 3, XCOM: Enemy Unknown, Torchlight 2, FTL, or They Bleed Pixels, all astoundingly good titles in their own right, as my GOTY, is that it feels important to me. And it feels important to me for one specific reason; The Walking Dead is not fun. It is not a fun game. Allow me to explain.

Up until this point, games have always been about being fun. And don't get me wrong, that's great. I love fun games. But the thing is, The Walking Dead manages to be a great, super engaging experience, without being fun. The Walking Dead is not a fun experience. It's stressful. It's emotionally distressing. The choices you have to make are horrible. It makes you care about characters with wonderful writing, and then has horrible things, up to and including random senseless death, happen to them. It's a grueling experience, and the fact that it manages to be so engaging, and such a great experience, while also being one that's not "fun" in any sense of the word, seems super important to me.

Back when film was first invented, most of the earliest films were comedies. The reason why was simple, slapstick comedy is easy. That doesn't make it lesser by any means, and I absolutely believe that comedy can be art, but with the medium being so new, and so primitive, comedy, or eventually more "fun" adventure films, were a simple way for the medium to become established. Once people had started learning the medium, and it had become more established, we started seeing the beginnings of what film would become. It wasn't until the later days of silent films, and the early days of talkies would we see films start to tell dramatic stories which were designed to emotionally engage the viewer. Movies like Gone With the Wind, for example, couldn't have existed in the very earliest days of cinema, because the format wasn't established enough for anyone to know how to use it to effectively tell a dramatic story, so comedy (slapstick and otherwise), were used to learn, and evolve the medium. This was a very important step in the evolution of film.

I feel like that's what we're seeing here with video games. Before this point, games have been about fun. That's not a criticism, that's a fact. Even games which I feel are indisputably art, Bioshock, Wind Waker, Mass Effect, have been about providing the player with a fun experience. The Walking Dead is the first game where I wouldn't say that hold true. It's a great experience, it's a great story, it's a great game, but it's not "fun". I'm not sure if The Walking Dead is the first game to do this, but it's the first game I've ever felt this way about, and it's the first game to do this which I feel has achieved this level of success.

I don't think The Walking Dead is the Citizen Kane of gaming, by which I mean the game which will sort of legitimize the medium in the eyes of the art snob out there (not that it needs legitimization), but it does feel like a progression of the medium to me, and one which I'm excited to see. Everyone should go out and play The Walking Dead right now. It's a great game, and possibly a very significant one for the future. It's seen such success that Telltale, a studio which I feel has always struggled to find it's place, between mild successes like Back to the Future, or critical and financial flops like Jurassic Park, has already announced both a Season 2, and a game adaptation of another popular comic book series, Fables. Not only is Telltale's The Walking Dead the best The Walking Dead there's ever been, it's an astoundingly huge success, in a year where even big studios have been coming under fire for their restriction of player choice.

Go play The Walking Dead. It's really good.

Mobile Game Review - Wreck-It Ralph

noreply@blogger.com (Zul) — Mon, 19 Nov 2012 16:59:00 +0000

Disney's Wreck-It Ralph (available on iOS and Android) as you might expect, is a game based on Disney's Wreck-It Ralph, an absolutely fantastic movie you should go see right away. More specifically, the game is a collection of three games, with a fourth to come, based on the games the characters visit during the film. As such, I should say a few things about the games individually.

Fix-It Felix Jr.

"Fix-It Felix Jr." is the actual arcade game which the main character of the film, Ralph, is from. You see the game quite a bit in the film, and I'm glad to say that not only does it look exactly like it appears there, but it's a lot of fun on it's own, even without the ties to the film. You play the title character, Fix-It Felix Jr., as you try to fix the windows which Ralph has wrecked, and avoid falling bricks and flying ducks. You also collect pies to grant you temporary invincibility, and double points gained during the effect.

As you climb the building, and rack up points for fixing windows (and not running out of time), the actual stage gets more complicated, as flower planters, and open blinds create obstacles preventing you from moving in certain directions.

It's a simple concept, but one that's extremely difficult to master, especially as obstacles start appearing to limit your movement. This has quickly become one of my favorite games on my phone, and I highly recommend the game for this alone, the ninety nine cents are absolutely worth it for this alone, as this is a five star phone game.

Sugar Rush Sweet Climber

Unfortunately, while I still recommend the app purchase for the first game alone, the other two are... Not so great. Specifically, "Sugar Rush Sweet Climber" is practically worthless. The game plays as a Doodle Jump clone, and on paper there's nothing wrong with that, as Doodle Jump is a very, very fun game. Unfortunately, the issue arises with the fact that "Sugar Rush Sweet Climber" is oddly sluggish, and unresponsive to your movments, making it very difficult to play.

It's disappointing, too, as the actual "Sugar Rush" game seen in the movie is quite obviously a play on Mario Kart, and if they had released that game, in full, as an actual Mario Kart mobile clone, even if they had charged five dollars for it, that would have been really great. Unfortunately, the didn't and "Sugar Rush Sweet Climber" is a very disappointing, halfhearted effort.

Hero's Duty

"Hero's Duty" is better than "Sugar Rush Sweet Climber" purely because it's actually functional. This version of "Hero's Duty", unlike the one we see in the film, is a dual joystick shooter. It's... Fine, I guess. I mean, it works. If that's your thing, go for it I guess.

All I really have to say about this game is that there are much, much better dual joystick shooters on both iOS and Android. Ones which are actually creative, and fun. I'd recommend Beat Hazard Ultra, which just launched on Android a few days ago. Although it's a lot more than this app (and admittedly I haven't gotten the paid version on my phone yet, I've played a lot of the game on the computer), it's also a much more interesting, and inspired take on the game.

Again, it's disappointing that they didn't go the extra mile, and create the actual "Hero's Duty" game seen in the film. If they had created a first-person shoot like N.O.V.A. (a popular android FPS), and charged five or six bucks for it, just like with Sugar Rush, that would have been a much more interesting course to take, and one that I imagine would have paid off for them in the end.

There's a fourth game promised on a coming soon page, "Turbotime", which is seen in the film, but telling you how would be a spoiler. Personally, as "Turbotime" was supposed to be an 8-Bit racer in the film, I'm hoping they'll stick closer to the "Fix-It Felix Jr." method of actually creating a fun, interesting arcade game, instead of just making a crappy flash game which would have gotten stuck on Disney's website five years ago.

Don't get me wrong, this app is definitely worth your time and dollar, just know that while a third of the games included in the collection are fantastic, the other two are mediocre, to just plain bad.

The Best Six Films of 2012 (So Far) In No Particular Order

noreply@blogger.com (Zul) — Mon, 12 Nov 2012 05:39:00 +0000

While, thus far, this year's video game releases have left something to be desired (if purely for the lack of ANYTHING COMING OUT), this year has been absolutely phenomenal for films, particularly genre films. In fact, I can't remember a year with so many astoundingly good films... Ever. 2012 may not have produced the best genre films ever (though I do believe some of these will be considered among such in years to come), but it's certainly produced a lot of really, really good ones.

So I thought I'd share six of the best movies to come out this year so far. These are all great movies, definitely worth your time. These are in no particular order here, though I will tell you that I'm absolutely torn apart trying to decided which among three of them is my favorite film of the year. Without further ado, six films from 2012 you should make time to see.

Wreck-It Ralph

Wreck-It Ralph began to get a whole lot of buzz earlier this year when the first trailer came out for it, and revealed that not only was the plot pretty unique (the villain of an old arcade game deciding he wants to be the hero for once, and "game jumping" to find somewhere he can be), but that there were literally dozens of cameos from real, actual video game characters.

Well as it turns out, Wreck-It Ralph is every bit the love letter to gaming that people had hoped it would be, but not for the reasons they thought it would. While the cameos are there, and very well used for the most part, the reason the film works as well as it does is because of the attention to detail it pays, and the way it really gets video games in a way Hollywood never has before.

From the absolutely gorgeous pixel art featured in places, to the way the music sounds like video game music, to the way it mirrors video games in dozens of other ways even down to things like camera angles, or the way they actually got Buckner & Garcia of "Pacman Fever" fame to write a Wreck-It Ralph theme, to the way the characters look different depending on what kind of game they're from, to literally dozens of other things I can't even begin to describe, this movie works in every way it needs to.

While there are a couple of jokes that didn't land, especially from Sarah Silverman's character Vannelope (LOOKIN' AT YOU "HERO'S DOODIE"!), for the most part Wreck-It Ralph is a fun, funny, great film. Every gamer should see it, people who don't like games should see it anyway, for a legitimately good film.

Paranorman

Paranorman is a PG comedy version of The Sixth Sense. I am not kidding. Norman, the main character, is a boy who sees ghosts. Unlike Haley Joel Osment's emotionally scarred character however, Norman is pretty ok with this.

From Laika Animation, Paranorman is a stop-motion animated film, and honestly, that's all you had to say to get me excited for it, because seriously, I love me some weirdly dark stop-motion kids films, as evidenced by the fact that The Nightmare Before Christmas is one of my two favorite films. Beyond the exceptional animation, however, there's also a fantastic, really interesting story in the film. Each character is bizzare in their own delightful way, and while it bugged me that Norman's powers are kind of forgotten for the second half of the film, when you've got satirical take downs of small-town american's chasing after bumbling zombies in the second half of the film, it's impossible not to love it. There's a few surprising twists in the story I don't want to spoil, but suffice it to say that the movie is, again, well worth your time.

Chronicle

Holy telekinetic superpowers Batman, this is a dark film! Chronicle is a found footage movie about three teenagers who get superpowers. I'm pretty sure that sentence just sounded like the worst thing ever to a sizable portion of the world, so let me clarify. Chronicle is a found footage movie that's super well written, uses the found footage format extremely well, and has teenagers who are likeable, or at least sympathetic, even when they're objectively terrible people.

The main character of the film, Andrew, is an outcast, emotionally (and at times physically) abused kid, who has no friends, and videotapes everything that happens to him (it works in this case, trust me) except for his cousin (and fellow main character) Matt, and even that's more out of pity. When Matt invites him to a party, the two of them, plus another friend of Matt's, Steve, discover a cave which leads to a bizarre thing which gives each of them telekinesis.

What follows is basically a story about what a group of teenagers would actually do if they got super powers, which is to say, totally abuse them. It's also an incredible character study into the mind of an emotionally unstable teenager, and the kind of person who could eventually grow up to be a serial killer. Sound like fun?

Seriously, even if you're turned off by the idea of another found footage movie, this one uses it a lot more intelligently than anything else I've ever seen (it's heavily implied that someone is putting together footage from hundreds of cameras after the events of the movie, perhaps as a sequel hook), and is a great film. Plus it has an insane third act which I won't spoil for you (though the above movie poster pretty much does). If you're in for a dark, tragic tale, but an extremely well written and directed one, Chronicle will not let you down.

The Avengers

Oh come on. It's The Avengers. Of course it's on here, it's a fantastic film, and pretty much everyone saw it, judging by the box office. But yes, needless to say, The Avengers is very very very very very very very good film, and unlike anything that's ever come before. Marvel's ambitious project hasn't produced a bad movie yet, and this is probably the best one yet. Despite a simplistic plot, The Avengers did everything it needed to do, namely let us see all our favorite Marvel heroes (that they still have the movie rights to, that is) up on screen together, playing off of each other. The perfect casting made each of the characters feel exactly how they needed to, it had the king of ensemble casts writing and directing it, Joss Whedon, and the end result is one of the best comic book adaptations ever put to film. Go see it if you haven't already, it's very very very very very very very good.

The Dark Knight Rises

I already wrote quite a bit about this movie, so I'll keep this brief. The Dark Knight Rises is a good film. It is not as good as The Dark Knight. Some people would have you believe this means it is a bad film. Those people are crazy, because if not being as good as The Dark Knight makes you a bad film, then there are no good films other than The Dark Knight.

The Cabin In The Woods

Oh man. Oh man oh man. The Cabin In The Woods is a very difficult movie to write about, because the more I tell you about it, the worse it becomes. Suffice it to say that Cabin In The Woods' advertising was extremely misleading. On the surface it seems to be the most stereotypical slasher film in the world, a group of archetypal characters (The Jock, The Bad Girl, The Stoner, and so on) go to a cabin in the woods for the weekend, and horrible things begin happening. But then you start watching it, and you realize there's something more going on, significantly so.

If you've read anything about the film, you probably already know at least the first twist upon that plot (which, for the record, is FILLED WITH THEM), but if you don't, I encourage you to go into the film as blind as possible. The unexpected places that the film goes will surprise you in ways you would never expect... Plus, when I said Chronicle had a crazy third act, that was nothing compared to this movie. This movie has one of the most insane, and wonderful third acts in film history. You MUST see this film for just that if nothing else, if you have any love for horror movies, slasher movies, or just monster movies in general.

TV Review - Beauty and the Beast Pilot

noreply@blogger.com (Zul) — Sat, 20 Oct 2012 23:41:00 +0000

Beauty and the Beast is one of the most bizarre comedy of errors that I've ever seen. The show is not strictly based on the classic fairy tale, as one might think (especially with the rise of fairy tales stories seen recently with Once Upon a Time, Grimm, and multiple Snow White films), but on the 80's TV Series which ran for three seasons and gained a cult following.

The original series was a re-imagining of the classic fairy tale (before re-imaginings of classic fairy tales were a thing) which set it in 1980's New York. The titular "Beast" and "Beauty" were Vincent, a mysterious cat-person who lived within, and protected, a secret underground society underneath New York, and Catherine, a District Attorney. I'll admit that I'm not super familiar with the original material, having seen only a few episodes, and having a general understanding of what the show is about, but it has a fair number of fans, both from when the series originally aired, and who have learned of the show post-internet. Also it had Ron Perlman playing Vincent, and how can you not love that?

I'm not even sure whether to make a Fallout or a Hellboy reference here. That's how awesome Ron Perlman is. So c'mon.

The point is, it was a charming show where Vincent would help people, and there was romance between Catherine and Vincent, and it was pretty good, from what I've seen of it at least. I'm sorry if I can't provide deep insight into the nuances of the original show here, but that's because I just don't know that much about it.

Fortunately, I don't need to understand the nuances of the original series to identify the many flaws with the new series. The new series features Smallville's Kristen Kreuk playing Catherine, and Jay Ryan of, uhm, stuff, as Vincent.

No, that's not the wrong picture. Those are our leads. You may notice something. BEAST IS KIND OF NOT UGLY.

Let me be clear, while this is one of the issues with this pilot, it is not the only one (or even the primary one). But yes, it is a huge issue to have the character of "Beast" look like... A guy.

So the "hook" for this is that Catherine is in school to become a lawyer (Fandom nod?) when she is witness to her mother's murder. The killers chase her into the forest, but she is saved by a mysterious beast.

Years later she's become a cop, and after a series of killings based off the works of a famous author, seeks him out to try and get in the head of-- Wait, no, sorry, that's the wrong show. Years later, Catherine has become a cop, and is forced to work with her eccentric mathemetician brother who-- No, wait, sorry, that's not right either.

The point I'm getting at is that Catherine becomes the lead in a pretty terrible procedural cop drama, and I say that as someone who really likes well done procedural cop dramas (Castle is one of my favorite shows on the air right now). After a dead body surfaces with DNA belonging to a dead doctor/soldier (by the way, there's an absolutely terrible piece of exposition about Vincent's motivation where you find out he lost his brother in the Twin Towers, OH GOD WON'T YOU FEEL SOMETHING FOR OUR POORLY WRITTEN CHARACTER?!), it leads her to discover Vincent, living not in a spectacular underground society, but in a warehouse with an Xbox and a nerdy roommate. Are you in awe?

As you may have picked up, this is really an in-name-only adaptation, which, aside from some similar character names, has nothing to do with the original show. Vincent here is only in beast form (which still has him look like a guy, but with some veins on his face, so scary) when his adrenaline kicks in, and now Vincent, who as it turns out faked his death, tries to help people from the shadows, while he searches for a cure to his condition.

Let me restate that. This is a show about a man who faked his death after a science experiment gone wrong gives him a condition which gives him super strength, but also causes him to lose control of himself, when his adrenaline kicks in (say, from getting too angry, or hurt), and who tries to help people without drawing too much attention to himself, while simultaneously searching for a cure.

That's right, this show has more in common with The Incredible Hulk than it does with Beauty and the Beast.

This show is a series of baffling choices, and I don't see it lasting more than a season. It shall not be missed.

TV Review - Revolution Pilot

noreply@blogger.com (Zul) — Sun, 23 Sep 2012 05:24:00 +0000

Revolution is a new TV Series from Executive Producer J.J. Abrams (Lost, Alias), created by Eric Kripke (Supernatural), the show runner. Now, given that I loved Lost, and really enjoy Supernatural (despite itself, at times) I was rather excited for this show to debut. Now I've sat down and watched the pilot and... I didn't really like it. At all.

The plot of the show is, one day, out of the blue, all electricity on Earth stops working. Anything powered by electricity, computers, planes, cars, lights, all of modern technology and modern society is rendered useless. The show is then set 15 years later, where society has fallen apart and only begun to rebuild itself through small forms of chaotic governments, militias, who strong arm honest people into paying them taxes, and war with each other.

Now, if at any moment that sounded interesting at all, I hate to break it to you, but it's really not. The first mistake this pilot makes is by skipping over the most interesting thing it has going for it-- The world falling apart. By skipping forward 15 years we miss the most interesting aspect of the premise, which is seeing how the world would react. By the point our plot is set, the world has mostly reformed into something new, and seeing all of that happening would be a million times more interesting than simply seeing the reactions.

The next problem with this pilot is that it's incredibly predictable. I could accurately predict everything that was going to happen five to ten minutes before it did. Predicting who's going to die at the end of a scene before the scene begins, who a character really is as soon as he's introduced (as someone else), predicting that one character isn't who he seems as soon as we meet him... The result is a tedious slog of an episode. The only thing I didn't expect was one twist at the end, which admittedly was well executed, and will probably make me come back for more.

Another problem this pilot has is the characters, if you can even call them that. "Archetypes" is probably a more descriptive term. You have the brother, the love interest, the nerdy guy, the dad's new girlfriend, the bad guy (oh, and on a positive note, the actor who's playing the bad guy of the episode does and excellent job, he also plays the Mirror in Once Upon a Time), the scoundrel-with-a-heart-of-gold, and of course, not-Katniss.

Because the characters are so archetypal, you don't care about them in any way. It's a pitfall you run into in any pilot, but I want to be clear here, it's certainly possible to introduce characters in a pilot and make you care about what happens to them. Supernatural, for example, Kripke's other show, introduced, in the first episode, the two brothers, and managed to make them feel like more than just archetypes. You learned immediately how these brothers got pulled into the world of the hunters. You learned about how they were raised, how they hadn't spoken much recently, how Sam and his father had a falling out, how Dean always stuck with his dad... I don't consider Supernatural to have the best first season out there (or, indeed, even a very good first season), but you definitely cared about the two characters enough to have reason to care whether they lived or died. And when Sam's girlfriend dies at the end of the first episode, you care.

In this, however, I couldn't care less about what happens to anyone. They introduce so many characters, so quickly, that you don't understand who any of them are. That's likely a problem that can be fixed over time, by fleshing out the characters over a season, but even Flash Forward, gave us more details in the pilot about it's characters than this did. I didn't remember drunk-cop's name, but I could tell you at least one thing about his backstory (that he was an alcoholic). I don't remember lesbian-cop's name, but I could tell you at least one character trait (that she was a closeted lesbian). Instead, this one introduces not-Katniss to the viewer, but doesn't really tell us anything about her. Her entire character, thus far at least, is that we know she doesn't like dad's new girlfriend and we know she's protective of her brother. Ok. This is not enough to build a character upon. These are not personality traits, in anything but the broadest of strokes.

I don't think I can describe how boring this pilot is. Since I don't care about any of the characters, it shrugs off the mystery until the very end of the episode, and the plot is so predictable that I knew what was going to happen ten minutes before it happened, I just found the whole thing tedious. All that was left was the look of the episode and... Yeah, I guess it looked pretty good. You know. If you like watching Life After People. But then that raises the question, why aren't you just watching Life After People?

The actual disaster aftermath, and societies regrouping, is nothing I haven't seen before... You know, what, let me be honest. I don't think I liked this, because I've seen this done infinitely better before. I've played Fallout. I like Fallout. I even love some Fallout. I'll give Revolution a few more episodes, and I hope that it'll get better, I honestly do, but so far, I just want a Nuka-Break TV Series.

#yearofthebow