King of Kong
Besides watching plays and hiking canyons, during my little two day escape, we also watched King of Kong (subtitled "A Fistful of Quarters") . I had been looking forward to this documentary for a while, and was just told that it was available on Netflix as both a DVD and as an "Instant Play" streaming video.

King of Kong shows the secret, seedy underbelly of the underground competitive retro-arcade gaming scene. Well, okay, not quite. The geeky competitive retro-arcade gaming scene. Surrounding, in particular, the game of Donkey Kong.

Billy Mitchell is, in this case, the home-town hero who enjoyed his claim to fame in the wild popularity of arcade gaming in the 1980's, and has enjoyed a twenty-year record as the world's best. And he comes across as being pretty ruthless and petty when it comes to using his influence with the tiny 'establishment' to protect his long-standing authority and records. Steve Wiebe is the outsider, the not-so-young gun who believes he's got what it takes to become number one, fighting not only one of the most challenging and popular arcade games in history, but an "establishment" that has invested in Mitchell as their hero, and seems to be unwilling to allow this interloper to dethrone their reigning champion.

Petty? Silly? Lame? Laughable? You know, even as a ... well, formerly hardcore gamer and a huge fan of retro-gaming, that was what went through my mind the first half hour of the movie. The posturing and interviews and big talk of aging geeks for whom the golden era of the arcade game never died sounded like a joke, like a parody of sports heroes. But they were plainly, completely serious. At first, it seemed almost like a deadpan "mockumentary," a This Is Spinal Tap style bit of silliness with Twin Galaxies chief Walter Day proclaiming the utter gravity and importance of this competition with the full conviction of over two decades of his life's work poured into it.

But you know what? Fifteen minutes later, we were sucked in. We were still laughing at points, but the meaning started hitting home. Maybe we weren't talking about big professional sports heroes. It doesn't matter if you are talking about the Olympics or world championship Chess tournaments, or a high-school volleyball finals or the regional debate team championship, the story of competition between people who care about can be intriguing, and they can have power to infuse their own meaning into their efforts. And it works.

Yeah, there was drama. The stakes may be small and intensely personal, but they do grow a bit larger when the Guinness Book of World Records gets involved. It's exciting. It's frustrating. It's the whole "thrill of victory and the agony of defeat" pitched by ABC's Wild World of Sports when I was a child, but surrounding an upright cabinet of Mario's first game (back when he was only anonymously referred to as the "jumpman.")

And it's all about arcade games.

In the end, I have to recommend the movie highly to anyone with a passing interest in video. Just get it, watch it, laugh at it, and see if towards the end you aren't cheering and pissed and thrilled and even interested in firing up a game of Donkey Kong and seeing how you rank.

My highest recorded score is still only 16,900, so I think Wiebe and Mitchell don't have much to worry about from me at the moment.

Labels: Movies, retro

- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 12:53 PM (Permalink) 5 comments links to this post

 
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
Not "Raiders" quality, but I liked it. It was different - I never, ever expected to hear Elvis in an Indiana Jones movie - but it worked out fine. Cheesy, over-the-top action, impossible stunts, plenty of fisticuffs and fights on moving vehicles. Pretty much standard fare for an Indiana Jones movie. And I think they did a great job NOT hiding the fact that Harrison Ford (and hence, the title character) is getting up there in years.

Worthy.

Labels: Movies

- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 11:53 PM (Permalink) 4 comments links to this post

 
The Last Starfighter - The Sequel
Apparently someone is creating a sequel to that seminal 80's classic movie of love, humanity, deception, courage, and alien-deposited videogames, The Last Starfighter.

The Last Starfighter Sequel - Rumor

The Last Starfighter Sequel - Possible Confirmations

Okay. So it's not exactly like they have much to live up to. Sure, I have a tender place in my heart for the movie from my youth that let us all believe that our mad gaming skillz could make us uniquely qualified to save the entire universe from destruction. But here's a handful of reasons that conceit just wouldn't work in 2008:

#1 - Space Combat Games? No longer popular. I Know This. Maybe if it was "The Last Space Marine," or "The Last Master Chief" it would work.

#2 - Arcade Machines? Sadly, ancient history. A new, high-tech arcade machine appearing ANYWHERE would certainly arouse suspicion.

#3 - The alien super-game-tech of 1984 wouldn't be half as impressive as a computer capable of running Crysis at full detail.

#4 - The other folks in the trailer park are too busy trying to 5-star Green Grass and High Tides in Rock Band to watch you hit a high score on some weird space game.

#5 - Piloting a star-fighter from inside a cockpit? Retro. These days its all remotely-piloted vehicles anyway.

Okay, so I guess that's why a remake wouldn't work. I guess maybe with the sequel they can do something else related to video games. I could try and come up with a plot, but in my current state of mind, everything I think of that strikes me as remotely cool would be a total rip-off of Ender's Game. But hey, it would be kinda cool to have an army of kids in a tournament remotely saving the universe on their XBoxes without ever knowing it...

(Oh, and Hat Tip to TooMad for the link!)

Labels: Movies, retro

- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 4:00 AM (Permalink) 5 comments links to this post

 
Weird Al Riffs Jurassic Park
RiffTrax managed to enlist "Weird Al" Yankovik to provide a commentary with Mike Nelson for Jurassic Park.

I've mentioned RiffTrax before - their riffing on Star Trek V remains, of the several I've seen so far, my favorite. I was a big fan of Mystery Science Theater: 3000 in the past, and it's nice to still be able to get together with friends for "MST-3K parties"... only these days, we're as likely to watch a Rifftrax commentary on a more popular movie as to put in a 15-year-old videotape.

And, like many geeks, I'm a Weird Al fan.

So... we've got the MST-3K style treatment of a Steven Spielberg film, featuring Weird Al... It sounds like it's got the makings of a geektastic winner here, so long as they don't screw it up! :)

We're already making plans for a get-together to watch this one. I only have Jurassic Park on videotape, though... we'll have to see if anyone in our group has it on DVD.

Anyway, you can pick up the Rifftrax recording here:

RiffTrax Riffs Jurassic Park - With Weird Al

Drat. Now I've got Weird Al's "Jurassic Park" song stuck in my head...

Labels: Movies

- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 2:36 PM (Permalink) 0 comments links to this post

 
The Host
I saw "The Host" the other night. It was the last movie on our annual "Scary Halloween Movie" list - which was a little abbreviated (and delayed in viewing) this year due to a family crisis followed by crunch time at work. Overall, I thought it was kinda goofy, very foreign, but also dang cool.

But if you want to catch five of the best seven or so minutes of the film, click here. Be warned: It's got scenes of people being eaten by a giant monster.

The Host Clip: The Monster Attacks.

While it goes into spoiler-iffic territory, it's also from pretty early in the film.

Unfortunately, the trailer contains at least one even more critical spoiler. But it's a little less gruesome:

The Host Movie Trailer

Enjoy. Or not.

Labels: Movies

- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 9:57 PM (Permalink) 0 comments links to this post

 
The Next Game-License Movie
You may have seen Doom: The Movie or Silent Hill: The Movie. Or Tomb Raider. Or Blood Rayne, Super Mario Brothers, Mortal Kombat, Alone in the Dark, or any number of (generally crappy) movies based on videogames.

You may have heard of upcoming movies based on Dungeon Siege and Halo.

But the ultimate movie based on a game license is coming soon to a desktop near you:

Labels: Movies

- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 8:31 PM (Permalink) 0 comments links to this post

 
Review of Babylon 5: The Lost Tales - Voices In The Dark
I vaguely remember hearing that J. Michael Straczynski, the creator of Babylon 5, was a fan of the original Twilight Zone series. He even chose Ed Wasser for the role of Mr. Morden because he resembled Rod Serling.

In Babylon 5: The Lost Tales – Voices in the Dark, Straczynski has two stories that have the style and feel of two vintage Twilight Zone episodes, set in the popular Babylon 5 universe. Part of it is because of the very obvious low budget. There is no C & C, no Zocalo, and precious few extras. Except for a few special effects and CGI which is far superior to that of the original show, these episodes could have been part of a stage performance.

The subject matter of the stories feel ripped directly out of Rod Serling’s playbook. The first of the two loosely-linked segments features Colonel Elizabeth Lockley (Tracy Scoggins) dealing with Christian theology in the edge of space. In particular, it is a story of possession by devils and the role of religion in an era where mankind has already ventured into the heavens and found it devoid of angels, but instead sees wonders far surpassing a burning bush. I’ve always respected how Straczynski – a proclaimed atheist – deals very sensitively with religion and theology. This episode is no exception. The “Exorcist In Space” overdoes it on the voice modulation effects and weird camera angles, but otherwise tells a thought-provoking story

The second segment deals with a popular moral quandary. If you had the chance to save millions (or, in this case, billions) of lives by going back in time and killing a child who would eventually grow up to become an epic villain (like Adolf Hitler), would you? President Sheridan (Bruce Boxleitner) of the Interstellar Alliance finds himself facing this very decision, courtesy of technomage Galen (Peter Woodward). But he also takes the time to abuse an INS reporter and to vent at Galen about his methods and the technomages in general.

The lack of many extras, other characters, secondary plots, and general “bustle” of the show was surprisingly disconcerting to me, as a long-time fan of Babylon 5. They deliberately set the stories in places where you wouldn’t expect many people to be, but it still felt “off.” These are smaller, more intimate, and definitely lower-budget stories. Once again, they invoke the memories of old Twilight Zone episodes, where the entire episode might only consist of two sets and three actors, a single plotline, and lots of dialog.

For me – it worked. It was a pleasant return to the Babylon 5 - superior to most of the TV movies made after the original five-season run. I think some fans might be put off by minimalist presentation and quieter, more introspective tales. But Babylon 5 was always much more of a cerebral, character-based show than one of spectacle. More than one episode in the original series devoted much of the time to very few characters locked in a metaphorical box together. I think many fans of the series will enjoy In Babylon 5: The Lost Tales – Voices in the Dark if they aren’t expecting a full-blown return to season 3.

If you are unfamiliar with the series, I don’t think these stories would provide a great introduction to the show. Rent the movie “Babylon 5: In the Beginning” on DVD if you want a low-commitment introduction to the series. Just don’t come crying to me when you get hooked!

There are future installments of “Babylon 5: The Lost Tales” planned, the next one focusing on Michael Garibaldi (Jerry Doyle). Whether or not we’ll see them depends on the success of this first DVD. Call me a fanboy, but I’m really hoping to see more. Voices in the Dark wasn’t what I expected, but it is a worthy addition to the Babylon 5 series.

Labels: Movies

- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 11:47 AM (Permalink) 1 comments links to this post

 
Transformers Movie Review
I think the Transformers movie was the movie Michael Bay was born to make.

He's finally found his calling. Kid's cartoons. All this time he's been making more grown-up movies, and they've not worked. But when he does a gigantic cartoon with some live-action mixed into CGI cartoon characters, and... wow. It works.

Transformers had a dumb plot, a ludicrous premise (taken from the TV show), and some downright silly characters spouting off kindergarten-level themes. And you know what? It worked. I had a total blast watching it. The robots started swinging swords and shooting guns at each other, jumping out of the sand to attack a middle-eastern town, or whatnot --- and it was all good fun. Wild action. Butt-kicking goodness.

It was a Saturday morning cartoon, pulled off nicely, and I found I still have a place in my heart for that kinda thing. I can't recommend the movie for anything other than its great CGI, but I have to admit I had a lot of fun watching it.

Labels: Movies

- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 10:48 PM (Permalink) 0 comments links to this post

 
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
Well, so far, the new Harry Potter is the best movie I've seen this summer. I don't know if that means its really good, or because I was really hoping for better out of Pirates of the Caribbean and Spider-Man.

Part of it might be that this was my favorite book in the series so far (with Prisoner of Azkaban coming in a close second). This is where the series, in my mind, really started taking a turn for the dark and "grown up." Harry's universe was never safe, but now you get to the point where things really start getting into shades of gray. Sirius Black even makes a note of it to Harry, explaining how the world isn't divided into good people and bad people, but that everyone has good and bad inside of them. Those who once set him on a pedestal are now villifying him to serve their own ends. Poor Harry even discovers that his father wasn't the saint he imagined him to be.

Imelda Staunton was perfect as Dolores Umbridge. Uptight and obsessed with "sweet" on the outside, sick and twisted on the inside.

The one thing I really missed from the book was George and Fred's antics. Oh, they had their silly practical jokes represented well, and their explosive exit from the school. But they also used their sense of humor to lampoon the fear surrounding Harry, and to incite rebellion against the ever-more-draconian environment at the school.

I also thought the ending (after the big battle) was stumbling and unsure of how to finish things. But I vaguely remember the book being that way, too.

But hey, I try not to judge movies (or games) for what they aren't, but for what they are. And I really enjoyed the film. It made me want to go back and re-read the book. And the next one. Just to make sure I remember what's going on when the final book of the series comes out in two weeks...

Labels: Movies

- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 6:57 AM (Permalink) 4 comments links to this post

 
Diablo: The Movie - Coming Soon To A Theater Near You!
Today BlizzPlanet confirmed (inasmuch as these things can be made "certain") that a Diablo movie is in the works.

Once upon a time, this idea would have delighted me. After all, the world of Diablo is a rich in background and a combination of fantasy and gothic horror flavor. There is so much that could be done here, the concept boggles the mind with geeky feelings of goodness.

But Hollywood's reputation for movie adaptations of videogames isn't exactly stellar. Meaning they actually make their opposites - videogame adaptations of movie licenses - actually look GOOD. And while Hollywood has proven that they can - occasionally - do horror with a deft touch, the combination of horror and videogames just doesn't inspire me with confidence.

I'm trying to think - what GOOD movies based on videogames have been made? The last one that made it to the theaters that I actually enjoyed was Mortal Kombat, and that was more than a decade ago. Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within was certainly pretty to look at, but it wasn't a great show. Now - direct to DVD - Final Fantasy: Advent Children was pretty awesome. But that was undoubtably because I'm a fanboy of the game... I had to struggle to keep track of the plot. I can't imagine a non-gamer watching it with any amount of comprehension, or enjoyment beyond looking at the pretty pictures. I hear some people really enjoyed Silent Hill --- I haven't seen it yet, but I'm going to put it on the ol' Netflix list and try it out. After enduring the horror that was the Wing Commander movie, how bad could it really be?

Labels: Movies

- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 9:52 PM (Permalink) 13 comments links to this post

 
Star Trek V Rocks!
I never thought I'd say this, but I just saw Star Trek V, and loved it. But there was a trick to it. Which didn't involve alcohol of any kind (at least, not that I know of).

I first saw it nearly twenty years ago, shortly after it's release (I avoided seeing it in the theater, thankfully), thinking, "How badly can they screw it up? It's Star Trek." Just like that American Godzilla movie, I was both amazed and appalled by the fact that yes, they COULD screw it up that bad.

When I discovered "Mystery Science Theater 3000," I always wanted them to "do" Star Trek V: The Final Frontier, but I knew they could never afford the license to Paramount's baby. But years after the demise of both Star Trek (for now) and MST-3K (forever, probably), Mike Nelson created a new company called "RiffTrax," which basically continues the MST-3K joke of "riffing" on a movie. The riffs are sold as separate audio commentaries that you have to sync up to the movies. And play it on a separate MP3 - playing device.

Yeah, it's kind of a pain to set up. But once set up, it worked like a charm.

We invited a bunch of friends, called it a party, brought food, and figured that even if it sucked, we'd have a good time together, and play some multiplayer Guitar Hero afterwards. So it was a win / win. I downloaded the commentary onto the laptop, hooked it up to some speakers, and went through the synching-up process, and then let it rip to a living room of about fifteen adults.
It did not dissapoint.

I don't know if all the RiffTrax commentaries are this funny, but this one had some of us were falling out of our chairs by the end of the evening. While it didn't have the intermissions with the dumb skits or the "mads" or anything, it still felt a lot like good ol' MST-3K. The commentaries got a little bit edgier, but seemed more in the PG or PG-13 range. If you don't mind some jokes about Spock & Kirk's possible... relationship... you won't be offended.

The experiment was enough of a success that we unanimously decided to try it again, soon. I'd be hesitant to try a commentary with just Mike Nelson... so much of the humor worked because Mike & Kevin played off of each other so well.

Anyway, if you were ever an MST-3K fan, I recommend giving them a try, and let me know how it goes. I recommend a larger group of like-minded nuts, if you can swing it. If you hated MST-3K --- Well, this really is more of the same, so don't bother.

But now Star Trek V has been transformed in my memory as something associated with happy thoughts instead of pain. That, to me, is pretty dang impressive.

Labels: Movies

- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 10:03 AM (Permalink) 9 comments links to this post

 
Creepiest Halloween Movies
There's only a week left of the Halloween season, but if you are looking for a movie that may send some shivers up your spine for the weekend, here are some of my favorite. These aren't necessarily the scariest movies (I think the movie that scared me the most was Aliens, when I was sixteen, but it's not on this list.). And I'm not into gore-fests or pure "shock" horror. The operative word is "creepy" - movies that give you little ripple of disturbance in your mind, let you explore a fanciful questioning of the reality of the world around you, and maybe leave you a little more afraid of the dark. Spooky, creepy movies, preferably ghost stories.

In other words, perfect Halloween fodder!

The Ring
This is on nearly EVERYONE'S list for a really scary movie. The Ring is a Western make of a Japanese film (Ringu) that is a very modern ghost story --- sort of a haunted videotape. Well, a haunted video. Anyone who watches it dies horrifically several days later. The story surrounds a single mother who discovers the truth only after witnessing the video, and is desperately seeking a way to stop the curse.

The Changeling
This is an early 80's flick that is a classic ghost story. After the death of his wife and daughter in a tragic accident, a writer gets a "change of scenery" and moves to a house which is of course haunted. At first, he's convinced that it's his wife or daughter trying to communicate with him from beyond the grave, but then discovers that it is something far older, and more vengeful.

Ghost Story
This movie features Alice Krige (the Borg Queen in Star Trek - First Contact). Four older men have a little club where they meet regularly and try to frighten each other with ghost stories. The problem is that all of them actually share a very real haunted past, a secret which is coming back to take revenge on them and their families now.

The Others
Feels like a feature-length "Twilight Zone" episode. A young woman struggles to take care of her two ill children, who have a terrible allergic reaction to bright light. With her husband off fighting in World War II, and unable to leave her children unattended, she is forced to rely upon three strangers who appear one day volunteering to be servants. Unfortunately, the three new servants don't seem to be the only new additions to the household. An awesome, spooky ghost story!

The Sixth Sense
Who HASN'T seen this one yet. "I see dead people." A child psychiatrist struggles to help a child who has the power to see the dead... all the time.

The Fog
The original John Carpenter movie. I haven't seen the remake. A hundred years ago, a small village drew a ship to wreck by setting a false lighthouse light to draw the ship into the rocks. Scavenging the gold from the wreck, the community grew into a prosperous seaside fishing town. Now, on the hundredth anniversary of the wreck, a mysterious fog rolls in, carrying the vengeful spirits of the murdered crew...

The Thing
This is another John Carpenter horror flick, and a real classic. In a remote antarctic science base, an alien life form is discovered which can perfectly mimic any other living creature it encounters - and devours. Without hope of salvation from the outside, the base's crew must not only deal with a bloodthirsty monster, but their own paranoia and distrust of who is really human.

A Nightmare On Elm Street
Okay, here's a token slasher-style horror movie. But it was scary and supernatural, and Freddy Kruger has such an attitude! An evil child-murderer, put to death by vigilante justice many years ago, comes back to haunt the dreams of the children of his killers. But who he kills in their dreams also physically dies.

The Innocents
I just saw this one over the weekend. It's a 1962 (?) black-and-white film about ghosts, creepy children, and a governess who may or may not be going insane. It's based on the Henry James story, "Turn of the Screw."

The Bair Witch Project
Brilliant independent movie project. This movie got a lot of anti-hype backlash, much of which I suspect was instigated by the mainstream movie industry. But I really enjoyed it. Taking the conceit of being spliced-together footage of a documentary on a local ghost legend, the film uses the camcorder as a non-cheesey way to achieve a first-person perspective and put the audience in the eyes of three college students who go from being confident skeptics to terrified victims. The ending was particularly sharp and shocking. Warning: Do not watch if you are prone to motion sickness, or if you are greatly offended by an almost constant stream of the "F" word. As the kids become more terrified, this becomes about the only word in their vocabulary.

It
A television mini-series based on the Steven King novel. We watched it when it originally aired, and the ending of the first episode left my wife very freaked out. Fortunately, the ending provided great closure. While the point was (according to her) made much better in the book than in the movie, the idea is that the unknown is much more frightening than the known - once the protagonists actually confront the horror that has plagued them since childhood, its ability to scare them is drastically reduced. But Tim Curry as Pennywise the Clown is absolutely awesome and may give you a healthy suspicion of clowns for the rest of your life. I had no idea he could BE scary.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Hush
Okay, this is just a television episode. So we're stretching. But this episode, occuring early-to-mid-way through the fourth season (easily available on DVD) is perhaps the best Buffy episode ever, and has probably converted more people to watching the show than any other episode. It's experimental, in that most of the episode (about 25 minutes) is without spoken dialog. Several cadaverous visitors come to town, and steal the voice of everyone - so that nobody can scream when they proceed to harvest seven hearts.

I won't go too far into TV show / episode territory here, as several episodes of The Twilight Zone, or the new Supernatural series could probably work just fine, too.

Two non-supernatural movies that really creeped me out were Face / Off and Silence of the Lambs. But I wouldn't consider those Halloween fare, necessarily. Face / Off was supposed to be an action movie, but I was just freaked out by the premise. Strange? Maybe. And I guess just about everything with Pauly Shore in it gives me the creeps... thank goodness his decade of fame is over.

Anyway, if you've missed any of the above movies, they are worth viewing! Many of them are hard to find at the local video store, but they are all available through Netflix. (In fact, I joined Netflix mainly out of frustration at not being able to find some of these films when they were recommended to me). Enjoy!

Labels: Movies

- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 8:07 AM (Permalink) 10 comments links to this post

 
Pirates, Legends, and Torque
Okay, just some really brief reviews here:

Pirates of the Caribbean
It needed a fight scene near the beginning (like the wonderful fight in the smithy in the first movie), and needed some tighter editing - it felt like it was about 15-20 minutes too long. Beyond that, though, I loved it. Not quite as good as the first, but it's still edging out Cars as the best movie I've seen all summer. Dunno if this says great things about Pirates, or bad things about the other movie. Probably both. But ultimately, I had a great time watching this show. More Swashbuckling!

Rise of Legends
I've only had a chance to play a little of this game, but I was a huge fan of Rise of Nations. This game has a distinctly different feel, and it definitely feels like it's got some Warcraft III envy. However, I was afraid of a Total Annihilation: Kingdoms-style disaster, and so far it's not that. Don't you love how I'm referencing other games to provide me with a vocabulary to describe this thing?

So far, it's a lot of fun. I've only played one race so far, but I dig the "Steampunk" theme of that race. You can bring in heroes, something we've seen before in other games (I'm mainly thinking Age of Mythology here), and airlifting units is a potentially major role (a la Starcraft). One fairly fresh mechanic is (for the Vinci race, at least) are the building up of cities with multiple "districts" to increase your race's capabilities. I also like how you must capture OR purchase neutral cities and structures. The purchase option really gives a bit more oomph to players who favor economics. Not only do you gain possession of these buildings (and, in the case of barracks, possibly new units) without bloodshed, but the defending troops augment your own army. INTERESTING! I'm anxious to play it a bit more and see how that pans out.

Like Rise of Nations, the "Easy" difficulty is "ludicrously easy", and there are SEVERAL difficulty levels and single-player options to tailor your experience to your own skill level.

So it looks like a gem so far.

Torque Game Builder
I'm still fiddling around with Torque Game Builder, attempting to collect enough data to put together a somewhat more in-depth review. I've actually fiddled with three different types of games so far - an RPG engine, a casual-style matching game, and a shoot-em-up. No, I don't sleep much these days.

What I can say so far is that it's a lot more stable than it was for my RC1 "first-time-user" review. I'm still frustrated that what I consider to be the "killer feature" of TGB - the ability to render 3D objects (to make your 2D games look really cool) - is hobbled by lack of direct UI support (not a big deal) , lack of DirectX support (a VERY big deal!), and bugs.

If you are sticking with pure 2D bitmapped graphics, however, I'd call it a winner. I'm pretty dang impressed. I can't help but admire the functionality they've given the toolset. From a codebase perspective (I've had to get my hands dirty a few times with the underlying C++ source code), I have to admit that TGB layer is MUCH cleaner, better architected, and easier to follow than the Torque Game Engine. They've put some real thought into it, and it shows.

I'll have a more in-depth review at some point, after I've played around with a few more features. But the more I play with it, the more tickled I get with the tools and functionality it provides. I'm gonna say that's a good thing, and that the full source option is WELL worth the price as a serious indie game developer.

Labels: Movies, Torque

- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 8:35 AM (Permalink) 3 comments links to this post

 
Superhero Movies
I'm a superhero movie junkie. I was hooked on a few comics as a kid (X-Men, The New Mutants, Spider-Man, and a few mini-series. And I've also followed Straczinsky's Amazing Spider-Man series for the last couple of years, and Joss Whedon's Astonishing X-Men for a bit (I'm a fan of their television shows - and their writing makes a good transition to comics).

So I'm a sucker for a good super-hero movie. My favorite, actually, has been The Incredibles. I even managed to sit through Electra - as sucky as it was, it was much better than Batman and Robin, from the mid-90's. And tonight, I watched the much-anticipated X-Men III: The Last Stand.

I enjoyed the movie. I had a good time. The special effects were great. The fight scenes were awesome. But ultimately, it was only an "okay" movie. It didn't live up the previous films. I left feeling like I'd witnessed an awesome spectacle, but my emotional investment in the characters was only what was left over from the previous films. And what sucked was that it included an event - a character - that had been eagerly awaited since the the very first movie. ALL the comic book geeks were waiting for the appearance of Dark Phoenix. And it happened. And it was kinda - well - blah.

The problem was that there was TOO MUCH STORY.

This latest installment pulled out all the stops, and brought in tons of eagerly anticipated characters. Hank McCoy - the Beast. Callisto. Angel. Juggernaut. Arclight. Kitty Pryde and Piotr Rasputen as full-fledged team members. Moira MacTaggert. Dark Phoenix. And the events..! Pyro and Iceman duke it out! The mutant "cure"! Major characters dying or being permanently changed! The Danger room! And even a cameo Sentinel appearance!

It suffered from the same problem as Batman and Robin - TOO MUCH STORY, not enough time to tell it. You ended up with about a dozen five-minute stories that you could barely follow, and got introduced to new characters in a whirlwind of introductions. But because they have to share screen time with so many others, they get maybe three lines in and they are done.

The most intense superhero movies tend to be much more focused, one-on-one battles, combined with the hero's internal struggle. You have Peter Parker trying to sort out his failure of a personal life and going up against the Green Goblin. In his sequel, his own dual-identity is his big struggle, resulting in a temporary loss of powers and false happiness - and he's got his big one-on-one with Doctor Octopus. In the original Batman (which was a box-office mega-hit), you had Batman squaring off against the guy who "made" him... the Joker. In Batman Returns, young Bruce Wayne is fighting his personal demons in a fruitless effort to undo his parents' deaths... and battling his own mentor (and a powerful minion - it's definitely possible to have multiple villains).

Even in a more ensemble movie, the good ones have a focus. The first X-Men was about Wolverine, and to a lesser degree about Rogue. It was about being different - Rogue was trying to find a place to belong in a world that rejected her, and Wolverine didn't care about fitting in at all - until he found a friend he cared about. Then there was the battle against Magneto and his forces --- but the real battle was for Wolverine to save Rogue from Magneto. In the Incredibles, the focus is entirely on Bob Par, as he tries to reconcile his meaningful glory days with his drab, ordinary existance as a family man and 9-to-5 worker. Oh, and his big battle is against Nemesis, who has evil big plans against the world but is more importantly killing off Bob's friends and is targeting his best friend and his wife.

I don't know what it is about these movie producers / directors / writers, but they seem to take the attitude that if one villain is great, then a dozen villains "raises the stakes" and is a dozen times better! If the dual-plotline rocks, then adding ten major plotlines must really improve things!

No, all it does is clutter things up and make it much harder for the audience to care.

X-Men three acted like it wanted to be about Dark Phoenix. Which woulda been GREAT. and about a quarter of the movie was about that. But then it got lost, and in the last half of the movie she doesn't have much to do but walk around looking ominous. There was a GREAT opportunity in place to tell a VERY appropriate story about the government's misuse of power - turning what was originally billed as a voluntary thing to save people into a weapon to control them. Shades of the anti-terrorism laws of recent years, maybe? But even that gets glossed over as the movie rushes to cover ALL the territory it is scoped to cover.

Batman & Robin did the same thing. You had THREE villains with almost equal billing (one was the minion of Poison Ivy, so not so much), plus the introduction of Bat-Girl, plus young Grayson's chafing under Bruce Wayne's restrictions, plus Alfred's illness, and I can't remember what else (I haven't been able to bring myself to watch the whole thing again). You could probably pull out any TWO elements and made a great movie out of it. But no - they ended up with a collossal mess. And because they realized it was sucking, they decided to go back later and film some new and improved action scenes - further robbing the exposition from what little time it had to help the audience figure out what was really happening.

I heard a rumor tonight that the next Spider-Man might be in the same boat, with possibly three villains, plus the introduction of Peter's ORIGINAL girlfriend, Gwen Stacy. I am dreading the possibility that it's going to become another cluttered, jumbled mess.

Keep It Simple! The most powerful plots are the focused ones! If you want to raise the stakes, you do it by increasing the threat of the main antagonist, not by watering him down by introducing lots of secondary antagonists that are only loosely under his direction. You deepen the protagonist's relationships with those who will be threatened - instead of weakening them by having him meet fifty new friends in passing.

And don't think for a second that there's not a game-design analogy hiding here, even without the direct correlation between storylines. A game that focuses on doing one or two things REALLY WELL is going to be far and away better than a game that tries to do it all but only does a mediocre job at best at each one.

Labels: Movies

- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 9:13 PM (Permalink) 3 comments links to this post