Delay, and requrest, but a shining future ahead

My week has been delayed because my main computer has been really been screwed up, so my articles have been slowed because i needed to fix the damn thing. That being said, my Bioshock review is going along nicely, and i'm still trying to recover my Exalted review, which was sadly lost. However, that is just a matter of time and searching, and should work out nicely. But until then, does anybody know how to solve a problem with Baldur's gate. I can install the first game fine, but the second on is resisting my efforts. Every time I try to install it, this message appears

"Error installing iKernel.exe: (0x10000), and i have no idea how to fix that, dispite looking on the internet. If anybody could give me a hand, that would be great.
thanks
from
EE

Meh, an essay i had to do for psych class, might as well

The psychology City Slickers

Now recommending City Slickers is a rather odd movie to recommend, because when one simply explains the plot it sounds like yet another corny modern day American that preach hollow messages about finding one’s true nature while lacking any real depth. And it does follow the same format as most of those mediocre comities, the difference here is it does it well. It is using a standard model, but it is adding a very mature directing style to it. The humor is not only funny and clever, it feels realistic, like real people. And the message is presented in a way that feels really realistic in how they reach there conclusion. But there is also this great psychology aspect to it about the mid life crisis aspect to it, as well as touching into the themes of masculinity and childhood trauma.
Three men named, Mitch, Phil and Ed are going on a cowboy styled cattle drive, as part of a two week vacation. Mitch is coerced into it by his wife, who thinks he needs to unwind and refocus his life, Phil is trying to get over the divorce with his horrible wife, and Ed does this as yet another example of his need for excitement and adventure. All three characters are really trying to find themselves, as they are lost and confused looking for some sort of meaning to life, and they experience a good deal of development over the course of the film. While non of them miraculously change there personality forever and become totally new people, all three start to understand themselves better and find a moral center to life.
Mitch the main character is the one who’s change at heart is most obvious over the course of the film. In the beginning he is depressed and bored at his job, lost both spiritually and emotionally. He is most likely having a mid life crisis, as he is questioning weather he is a useful member of society and if he is really successful or happy at his job. When he is exposed to the cattle drive and the hard work involved in that, he starts to appreciate himself, and his work, effectively getting over his mid life crisis. Mitch’s moral development is mixed however. Before his trip he tries to provide for his family, but does so purely out of a sense of moral obligation, and is the character most focused on justice, such as saying he would never cheat on his wife even if she would never know, standing up for the women being harassed and protecting his calf. However if it is after the trip that he starts to find the purpose of his moral ideals, so he moves to the next step, becoming more enlightened about how his life is actually being run. His issues stem also from his mid life issues, worrying about how successful he is in terms of material wealth, rather than his own mental state, basically generatively vs. stagnation, and morally he is He mentions in the film that he has had a bad relationship with his parents, and is trying to be more honest with his kids, but mostly he is trying to feel alive again.
Ed’s case is similar, but unlike Mitch he need to find a reason to settle down, instead of looking for excitement. Ed is always trying to find excitement in life, or to “Prove” to himself. His issues come from his dad, who cheats on his mother and doesn’t seem to care for his family, and has no attachment to anybody, with Ed eventually driving him out of the house. However Ed never seems to want to settle down, always running from one adventure to another, or one women to another. Mortally he is focused primarily upon pleasure first, pleasure later, but eventually he grows to learn to take care of his family. His main issue however is Intimacy versus Isolation, as he is trying to choose between settling down and ending his adventure days or choosing instead to keep up with his way of life until he gets to old to keep it up.
Phil’s problems are the most obvious, and oddly enough the easiest to fix. Having always been somewhat of a “GoofBall’ he also had issues with his father, who we gathered was disapproving and distant from him. His marriage was nothing short of horrific, but he lacked the ability to stand up to his wife until she caught him cheating on her. To him the vacation is both an improvement from his life, and a new start/a way to recuperate, so his issues stem from that in part, his desire to start a new life, and to find happiness again. He is dealing with a new fear of commitment, and eventually leans to not worry about things so much and to live his life to an extent.
In short, City Slickers, despite its rather mellow plot and storyline, contains a good deal of deeper psychological meaning to it hidden under its more casual movie design. Its blend of realistic feeling comedy and human reactions to their situation it can really make the audience feel in touch with the characters and there problems. So it is a good movie, if your into a simple mid life crisis tale

from
EE

Coraline

Is this my soul....oh gods

Now if you are anything like me, you aren’t easily impressed by children films. My generation is the last to grow up in the “Golden Age” of Disney, where there was actual originality in the kid’s movies, or at least the pretense of originality within it, not just an endless series of sequels reusing the same jokes in a desperate attempt to get cash., so we tend to be much more sympathetic to kids films, because we fondly remember the films of our youth rather than the current generation’s memories of money grubbing dribble. Ever the contrarian, I tend to be even harsher on kids shows then most people are, and so I tend to feel angry when watching them. I’m also not a fan of Tim Burton. He has made some really good stuff in the past, and he should be commended for it, but I don’t really go “Oh my god, its Tim Burton”, especially after his horrible Charlie and the Chocolate Factory/Michael Jackson rip off film. So it is with rather stunned pleasure I present to you my Coraline review, saying that not only is it “Not bad” its actually a legitimately “Good Movie”. I’m going to generally assume you know what is going on for this review.

Coraline is an animated film, but unlike most that we imagine, its going for a totally different imagery. The set feels very much like Wallace and Grommet Clay animation, except with a far more darker them to it. The landscape has this great surreal creepy feeling to it, giving the world a very nice sense of being haunted or spooky”. The people are rather out of proportion, but there movements are really well done, it makes them resemble dolls in motions while still looking human enough to be sympathetic. I actually like the main character’s blue hair, which is saying something because I tend to be against freaky colored hair in general, so this says a lot. The story does have this great doll theme going for it, as the scenes which involve people being created are really cool in design. The “Otherworld” deserves credit too through, both for its normal image, but also in how it falls apart until nonexistence and unreality.
The story is something you can pick up from the trailers, so I won’t bore you, but what shocked me was how adult the themes were. I mean, the story is basically talking about abuse, neglect, and the dangers of domination power relationships. Coralline’s parents are neglectful and have skewed priorities, with there daughter not being on the top of those. However the dynamic in the “Other world” touches upon a lot more darker themes, which can see in the trend of feminine imagery. Before going into that, I will like to say that I really like that the movie had a strong female protagonist. And not strong in the sense of “oh look at her, she has a spine, but needs a male character to help her” way that Disney likes to do (Damnit Snow White), but Coraline is always the most dominate character in most of the scenes, and feels actually legitimately strong willed. Going off that, the Beldam (a term I actually knew before watching this….which is crazy), is the main villain and ultimate controller of the “other world” (as opposed to the Other Father, who is little more than a puppet). So the movie is very much focus on a female perspective of things (wow that sounds patronizing doesn’t it?) which I think is really cool. The other mother, apart from being a giant spider monster, is dangerous in her relationship to Coraline, as she can be seen as a metaphor for both a kidnapper and as an abusive parent. The kidnapper angle can be see in her angle in getting Coraline’s love, and seems to be the more obvious metaphor, so I’ll get it out of the way quickly. She puts on a façade, appeal to a child’s need to be dotted upon, to draw her in, then destroys her after drawing her into her web. Yeah, that angle is a little obvious. But the abusive parent angle I think is interesting. The Beldam wants more than anything Coraline’s love, but not love in the conventional sense, but love only so far as to boast her own ego. She demands submission in return for favors and treats, and while she is generous with her gifts, its all part of a ploy to fulfill her own neediness. While she is kind and “loving” to get Coraline’s trust, she also demands a total submission from her child, and when Coraline tries to assert herself in any way, she begins to lose herself. The Beldam wishes to have a love more to the form of worship, and in doing so drains her victim’s personality, and eventually there lose, reducing them to ghosts of there former selves. This is think is a reference to abusive parent relationships, not in the traditional sense of the word (or how people traditionally imagine it) through domestic violence, neglect or fights, but more in how a domineering mother can really ruin a child’s life, just through dominating there child’s life. Coraline is neglected by her real parents, who mean well, but her imagination still exists. Her real mother has that mitten conformist scene, but eventually gives in and allows her have the mittens, while her “Other Mother” hopes to completely stifle her creativity. Also how many abusive parents simply want to be love, but don’t understand or don’t care about a child’s need to exist outside there parent and have there own personality. The spider’s web is a trap in how the Beldam is dominating every aspect of the child’s life, with her standing in the middle.
Abuse themes aside, there are a lot of sex and birth imagery going in there, particularly with the two actresses…..yeah if you’ve seen the movie I don’t need to explain that part. But there is a cool scene when she is trying to get the soul of the cocoon and the umbilical cord/womb imagery later in the movie. So watch out for those, you will have a blast (long passage, the well, the garden, what does it all mean). But honestly, it is a really dark, at least as far as kids films go, and I mean that in a good way, in the sense that it has obviously been deliberately thought out and planned to be disturbing, in a sense that who ever made it really put a lot of effort into it and really cared for it. In this current age of endless mediocrity, it is nice to see somebody who actually cares for his work. ( But in short, it was a really good movie, shockingly so considering what I expected, and I will really recommend it. If you aren’t a kid movie fan, then I recommend you watch it as an adult movie using childhood as a them. If you love kid movie, then it is as good as Wall-E, lets leave it at that.
from
EE

Javert the character

                                                 Napoleon isn't dead kids, he just got a new job

  

 

For all those musical fans, I’m sure you are aware of Les Miserables, so you can skip the opening paragraph.  For those that don’t know, it was an old French written after the Revolution about the prison system, redemption, and poverty within the nation.  Jean is arrested for stealing a loaf of bread and is put in jail for 20 years (most of that is from escape attempts).   After his realize, he runs away, but eventually reforms, becoming a mayor and a businessman of a town who cares for everybody and an all around good person.  However a police man with some truly remarkable memory is sent after him, Inspector Javert, who is  more interesting as a character than Jean himself.  He is a man who was born inside a jail, but through some absurd hard work, worked his way into the law system.  He says that he has never broken a law and follows it to the letter, never allowing any injustice to slide.  

I’d say this was a complex and in-depth issue but um…LE.  Yeah.  Not much to say there.  He is Lawful by definition basically and while you might dub him LN, the system he supports is a pretty evil one and supports an unjust and unfair law system. 

Well that was a pretty simply article actually, so lets move on a bit from there into the character a bit more about the nature of the character.  I always liked the idea of Javert, an obviously antagonistic character whos total commitment to the law makes him a rather admirable character simply for his devotion, to the law and the idea of a perfectly “honorable” character in that he puts the law before anything else.  However this fails to strike a cord in a modern audience however, because quite frankly he lacks nobility.  The French law system at the time is so slanted and corrupted that it is really hard to feel conflicted for a guy who’s “law” is basically an oligarchy’s way of keep power.  What would make this character more interesting?  If he was supporting a more well, valid system I might feel a little more sympathy for him and more conflicted over who I should be rooting for (well I rooted for him anyways because Jean is kinda annoying but still).  For example, what if we had say….the same story in America.  Jean is like an African American who grew up in a horrible environment, (yeah I’m tapping a stereotype I know, but it is one that is based upon reality) with no father, a mother who had him while young and is involved in drugs and grows up without any proper education (because of the current American education for the poor is basically a huge “Fuck you”), and the people he grows up with are almost all involved with drugs, crime, prostitution, and gangs.  A generally good kid, who tries to help his folks, but not perfect, he does something stupid, as kids always do and find himself in jail for like 15 years.  After being realized, he reforms and starts trying to fix up his community.  The Javert character is either an FBI agent or some other sort of law enforcement who is trying to track Jean down and  bring him back to jail.  The difference here is that he follows American law to the letter, including getting warrants for ever address/search and making sure that no abuse is done to people below him.  In short, ensuring that while he does serve the role of the antagonist, he goes out of the way to make sure he upholds the law, so much as providing the main charater a fail trial.  That would be a lot more interesting I think, also if this Javert too came out of poverty and still was able to never break a law.  I don’t know, I thin the dynamic would be more interesting if you had a more kind legal system.

from

EE 

Alignment of Askeladd

".........I hate all of you" 

Alignment of Askeladd

To take a break from all of the Watchmen fuss, I’ve decided to do another Alignment review, as WG finishes his fallout review and I work on my Exalted. So a short and sweet one for today, from one of my personal favorite/unappreciated comics, Vinland Saga, possible the second best manga out there (first being FMA of course). And because I have limited time, lets go with it. Basically what I like about Vinland Saga is that it has one of the best balances in showing “real” people doing horrible things, but still being sympathetic. The Vikings tend to be portrayed either as mindless savages, or noble warriors in fiction, with little in-between, but this series really does manage to pull off a realistic portrayal. The Vikings are shown in there interactions with each other as kinda fun guys, they are friendly, most are supporting a family, and are brave in the face of danger (that isn’t universal of course, but they are pretty hardcore). We see there comradely, there jokes and there support for each other. We also see them slaughtering innocent English villages, raping women, killing children and selling who is left to slavery, looting an entire village and then killing them to feed there own troops, and generally acting like a bunch of psychotic raiders…..just like real life. And yet they are still able to be enjoyable characters, even as the reader sees there more brutal actions, which is a hard step to take and really does say a lot about this comic’s quality. Askeladd is a good example of this, he is very friendly, easy to get along with people around him and is a pretty fun character to read about. Unlike his Danish comrades, he has a long term goal, of a unified and organized Britain, which some can see as something worth fighting for. And yet, he has murdered anyone who dares get in his way, is in charge of the more brutal raids of the Danes, and kills his own men. So evil. I’d peg him as NE, because while he is Lawful, only when it suits him. Thors on the other hand, is a very good example of Lawful Good

from

EE

Watchmen

Do it, end the film now. DO IT

Now I’ve mentioned that I’m a fan of Watchmen and I went into the film with a pretension of detached pessimism, but in reality filled with surprised anticipation. When I emerged blearier eyed, exhausted into the pissed of sunlight, I learned a very good message about trusting the crowed and accepting popular option about a films quality. Don’t do it, you will only set yourself up for disappointment. Now the film wasn’t bad and I didn’t leave the theater feeling like my brain had been violated in some way (well apart from the headache from the many flashing lights), but I do actually regret those three wasted hours (not joking, I could have done some really cool things in that time). Now let it be known, I am a fan of Watchmen the comic book, because I think it has some really good stories/characters (unlike say, anything Frank Miller has ever done), and I like the Grey vs. Grey portrayal of American Society. And I really hate Zack Snyder, who I think is one of the worst directors in film history, and I don’t say that sarcastically. 300 was literally the worst film I’ve ever seen in my life, and I’ve seen Deep Space Nine, and Nazi films (actually if you’ve seen “Birth of a Nation” then don’t bother). 

And all of the cinematic elements (If not the massive racism, the homophobia, the thinly veiled political propaganda, the black and white setting, the simplistic portrayal of a much more complex historical event, the moronically stupid characters, the juvenile writing and the unoriginality), that I didn’t like about 300 return here with a vengeance, most noticeable being the absurdly stupid slow motion action scenes, extremely loud combat music and absurdly stupid over the top fight scenes. In fact, the film is chalk full of massive fight scenes, almost every encounter has some guy beating the crap out of somebody else.

 Now that is not to say that that didn’t happen in the book, but in the book the fighting was more realistic, like it was a bunch of guys literally just beating the crap out of each other while wearing masks, very realistic in a brutal sort of way. This feels like Kun Fu Hustle without the parody/good directing, the people are smashed around like rag dolls in a manner. 

In fact, every fight scene is almost the same, one guy throws a punch, the other guy effortlessly blocks with his fists, flips him, smashes him through a near by object, the other guy throws them back, they exchange these really forced and fake sounding punches until one of them ether is launched 50 feet away or bends out of shape. Which touches upon the biggest problem with Watchmen from a purely cinematic point of view, the artificiality of it all. My dad, who has never read the comic said it felt like a typical comic book movie, just loud and silly, which I find really ironic as Alan Moore wrote Watchmen in response to critics saying ‘It has a comic book plot”, hoping to prove them wrong by making an in depth graphic novel. 

The movie really does feel like a set, because all of the locations are either animated or so fancy and high text that it looks artificial and unreal. What I liked about Watchmen was the gritty realism that made it feel like real life, and nothing ruins that more than absurd explosions, men smashing each other through marble tables only to stand back up, and places that look absurdly organized and clean when they shouldn’t be are not realistic. A good watchmen movie would be designed like a Law and Order set (back in the old days when it was good of course), a feeling of actual building being run by real people. Also the fight scenes, unrealistic aside, are really graphic and that’s saying alot. I mean, I don’t mind violence in film really, but I like it to serve a purpose, such as showing how brutal real combat often is, but this served no purpose other than essentially shocking the audience often for no good reason. The fight with the vaguely Asian gangsters for example, our hero’s beat them to pieces with shocking brutality (actually I don’t think they kill them in the book) that serves no real purpose other than shocking the audience. The cutting of the man’s arms in the jail riot scene is another example of this, brutality for the sake of brutality, and graphic imagery that seems to be just brutal for its own sake. In short, the movie feels fake and I lack any empathy with the characters, ironically the exact opposite of what the writer intended. The movie presents an orgy of explosions, flashing lights, broken bones and artificial sounds, with dialogue thrown in almost as an after thought. On that note, lets talk about the dialogue its self actually. If you’ve read Watchmen, you should most likely recognize the lines from the comic book are repeated almost verbatim, which is actually not a good idea. Accuracy is wonderful, but it has to feel real, when watching Shakespeare I don’t get warm sense of happiness inside just be recognizing the speeches, I like to see how the actors say them and what creative licenses the director takes with the role and Snyder takes non here. All of the conversations, in fact all of the character interactions are presented in this stiff, wooden sort of way as they read there lines, as if they are trying to convey as much information as possible to the audience as quickly as possible. 

Even the most epic and fascinating speech (as I said before, Alan Moore is a very good writer) comes off as trite and tiresome, because the actors feel like they are going through a script rather than being real characters. I feel like when the director gave acting cues, he didn’t tell them “Ok, your father is the a ruthless Nazi who attempted to rape your mother once, how do you react” instead saying ‘Hey can you imitate this comic book scene?” The sets and chorography (apart from the god awful fight scenes) are almost copied frame by frame from the book, and that actually limits the scene, Rorschach’s various actions throughout the film are imitated to what he does in the comic book, and the actor doesn’t feel like a person so much as a dummy taking various poses. 

The movie is emotionally dead really, its not so much a film in its own right as a near endless list of moving photo shoots, and is so constricted by its imitation that it just comes of as hollow. The movie doesn’t really bring anything to the story, it just re-shows it. I don’t know about other fans, but I didn’t watch the movie thinking “Wow, it would be so cool if I could see this frame but acted out”, I more was looking forward to an interesting and engaging storyline, and having people who would otherwise never read the book be able to experience a really cool and interesting plot. Instead Zack’s single minded devotion (oh in my option, lack of any actual talent), just stagnates any real feeling of fulfillment from this. In fact this is typical of Zack who did this method of copying in 300, and here is the thing, that actually isn’t very impressive. In the modern age of computer graphics and advanced cameras, there is little that is actually impressive about copying a comic book’s pages, its like taking a picture of the Mona Lisa, congratulations I hope your impressed. The real art in directing a movie is taking something somebody has done and remaking it into something engaging, like the Godfather, Last King of Scotland, or Maltese Falcon. They were based after books certainly, but they added new life to the story and had there own spin to the events, it wasn’t just mindless copying. The acting varies, through there are no really impressive people, most of it just comes off as mediocre, because of their limited room in there roles, and the director’s choices just renders the acting talents impotent.
The only real changes I noticed in the movie apart from the added violence (And the WTF ending)was making Rorschach and the Comedian look slightly less evil. Now in any other movie I wouldn’t care, but knowing the radically right wing (and racist) message of 300, its worth looking into a tad bit, through to be fair some of this might just be in favor of time. The Comedian’s face isn’t horrible ruined, so when he opens fire upon protesters he isn’t wearing that creepy gimp mask that inspires a feeling of “Hey Nazis”, and he is shown as a little less brutish and more badass in this version, through its most likely just me touching upon minor details. Rorschach through comes off as a lot less, well, pathetic. His voice sounds a lot like Clint Eastwood, and some of his details are changed. While still the son of a prostitute, it kind of misses the point of explaining his back-story. The idea is that Alan Moore is averting the “total badass stoic who never losses his cool, never looks bad” idea by showing him as emotionally traumatized, and one thing I found interesting was his fear of women and women’s clothing, and the highly hinted at sexual frustration within him, which is dropped, possibly due to time or because it makes the radically right wing character look less cool. I know his more controversial scenes were dropped, such as his torturing random people until he gets the right information (opposed to the one torture of an actual evil dude), as well as his more controversial dialogue. For example, in the book when Ozymandias calls the Comedian a Nazi, Rorschach goes into a rather interesting triad about how the Comedian fought and died for his country, and that if he is a Nazi, then so must Rorschach, drawing a parallel between that sort of far right wing extremism/paranoia and fascism, as they are directly related (in the same way the really far left can move into communism), and that is dropped, as his comment about the Comedian “moral lapses” (see also attempted rape). Also the child killer he murder is much more obviously guilty, where in the book its kind of vague, I mean it could have been coincidental (unlikely but hey), and as of such, the serials killers demands for an arrest seem just stupid, as if the director is trying to drain any sympathy from him so his brutal murder doesn’t look so bad (yes I know he is most likely a child murderer but I’ve seen “M”, I don’t believe murder is right even to those people). It might just be my paranoia, but it is interesting to note nonetheless
My final note of complaint is the pacing. For a film that has so much grounds to cover, it sure wastes a lot of time doing flash backs. I mean, it makes sense in a comic to do a flashback after each chapter, because it can take a while to read through that, but I don’t need to see the Silk Specter 1 parent argument 4 fucking times within a movie. Doing each part of the movie in terms of character segments may sound cool, but when you realize how fast they go by it feels more like your just showing a series of scenes rather than telling a story.
Now I didn’t really feel horrible watching the move and when I walked out I wasn’t filled with revolution, and there were plenty of parts I enjoyed, but I realized that the parts I actually enjoyed were the parts that I had forgotten from the book. The rest of it felt like I was reading the comic book but with flashy lights and loud noises. Was it an accurate adaptation? Yes I suppose, but it in doing so we just got a stagnant production. Through it did prove an important point, Watchmen is not “unmakable”. You can do a film of watchmen, and can do it very well, it just requires a good screen writer. So basically if you haven’t read the book and don’t plan to, then I recommend the movie, it’s a nice way to get the basics of the story without reading the book. And if you felt that the book needed just a wee bit more blood and gore, then by all means watch the movie. But if you’ve read the comic and really enjoy the story and want other people to understand why you love it without reading the book, then spare yourself 3 hours.
From
EE

Baldur's Gate Request/Mods/Patches

Not that i've fixed my computer, i have to re install all my games, and i figured this would be a nice time to replay the entire Baldur's Gate Series. This time I figured it might be nice to have some added content Mod/Patches wise, and i wondered if anybody knew any really good ones you'd recommend?
from
EE

Where i have been all week

I hurt my hand this weekend, so writing has been hard.  Don't worry, i'll be back in action this monday 

from

EE

Defining God, the Alignment of Dr Manhattan

pants.....are for the weak

Now this watchmen character is a little tricky to place, because well……He’s essentially god. I mean, the whole point of his character is how detached he is from the rest of humanity and things like morals, or life or what not. But what the hell, lets go with it. Now, I think Dr. Manhattan is a cool character and he is actually pretty interesting, so I can understand why people might be upset about giving him a mortal term like as alignment. And yet, he isn’t really “God”, so much as a person given powers over the structure of the universe, which leads him to take a god like role, but he is still a persons…kinda. If I had to give him an alignment, I’d say LE. When he first becomes God through freak accident (“Whoops”), he was most likely just N, maybe NG, a kinda normal guy. Immediately afterwards he most likely the same, but steadily becomes more and more lawful, as he starts to come to view the world as a comic system of which he has total access too. Evil, simply because of his actions, he is responsible for killing thousands, possible hundreds of thousands of people in Nam, and while he isn’t inhuman, he is still rather cold and merciless.

SPOILERS BELOW

He goes along with the villains plan to unite the Soviet Union and the US, saying it is the best way (actually if he was so omnipotent, he should have realized that conflict could have ended without a single nuke being fired, but whatever), and he murderers Rorschach for no reason other than his attempt to get the truth out, thus threatening the “Ideal” peace. I have to say, I think that . Manhattan because he took the lazy way out, he could have very easily just used his own powers to try to achieve a peace, or take advantage of the horrible destruction of NYC in a different way (which he didn’t avert in any way actually), but he folds entirely to the villain’s plot. I mean, he is detached from humanity, and yet he goes along with the utilitarian scheme they offer. Evil, mostly out of detachment.

from

EE

Damn technology

Damnit, i need to figure out how to make things that are double spaced on my computer appear so on the blog articles. And how to upload non internet photos. Anyone?
from
EE
Edit
Ok, i got the picture working

Finally Done Exalted 1st edition, first impression.

Yeah...its something like that  

People have been telling me to play Exalted for about a year now. Now about two months ago I got a copy of the 1st edition Exalted book and as I’m going to get the second edition main book soon, I figured I should familiarize myself with the basics of the game first.

Now I have a bit of a beef with White Wolf, and Exalted in particular, through it isn’t entirely their fault, and like most of my problems, I can tract it back to one particular source. Order of the Stick Fans will not be surprised to learn that that source is none other than Rutee, who I must say spoiled Exalted for me before even playing it. For those of you who don’t know, Rutee was a person on the old forum with whom I would always disagree. on EVERYTHING. Literally, every single thing we would fight about, I felt like this was a cliché movie, except without the sexual tension.. One of the many things we came to blows over was play style, and she held up Exalted as an example of an ideal system, which in turn made me grow to resent Exalted. I know this isn’t really the game’s fault, but I figured if even half of Rutee’s claims were right, I just wouldn’t like it very much. Remarkably , however I actually committed myself to learning how to play the game simply because I wanted to get the references in the webcomic, KeyChain of Creation, which is quite good. So credit to them for making this article happen.

So here are my impressions that I had before going in.

1) It is made by White wolf, and you already know my views on them.

2) It claims to be avoiding the typical Lord of the Rings based fantasy style, and instead tries to draw inspiration from eastern and older legends. Now this is BS, Exalted draws plenty of inspiration from LoTR, just another generation of inspiration down the line but we’ll ignore that

3) The game’s story telling style focuses more upon drama and narrative rather than rules. My understanding of this system is simply that the game encourages people’s success and powers based more upon the drama of the situation rather than a set of world abiding rules that dominates the whole game. In more detail, the basis of the game is about telling a good story and adding to drama, as well as generally feeling cool. The main characters are designed to be super mega badass demi gods, and can pull off superhuman feats, mostly because they are the main characters. People’s existence/importance is measured by weather or not they have a name more than anything else. A lot of mega logic goes into the actual mechanics of the system.

4) According to the fans at least (and we aren’t suppose to trust them anyways) Exalted is more “mature” than D&D games, i.e. they address issues of sex, violence and drugs in game. Now in reality that just means they talk about it with less subtly than D&D, but what the hell let’s go with it.

5) And the thing that I’ve heard the most about Exalted is that the players are super powered, and it runs a bit like an epic game. Now people have claimed that they are saying epic in the Hercules/Beowulf sense of the word, but the general impression I’ve gotten is that it is more like playing characters from House of Flying Daggers, Dynasty Warriors, or God of War. So when I first started reading this book, I got about as far as the inspiration section, and when I read that one of their prime inspirations was Final Fantasy VII, I shut the book and went off to do something better, because a game based after a mediocrity like that is as absurd as a absurd as an economic policy based upon Atlas Shrugged…….wait. Now I don’t like uber-powered games very much, because it feels much like self gratification, and it isn’t really that challenging

Right, lets move onto the actual review. Now that doesn’t mean the system is wrong, it just means that such a style doesn’t agree with me, while high power games can be handled maturely and can be a lot of fun, more often than not they move into the realm of absurd. Call me odd in this day in age, but I’m really not that much impressed by films like Kill Bill, (and for that matter, Final Fantasy cut scenes, which are essentially the same thing) or games like God of War/Dynasty warriors. As my Three Musketeer review indicates, I much prefer when the world functions under a more realistic basis, and the heroes are actually challenged. Anime or movies with over sized swords and heroes blocking bullets with their swords bored me. Also, despite their claims of basing their game upon the Greek heroes, I don’t actually recall them being that godly. Ignoring Heracles, Achilles or other children of gods, most of them are just powerful in the typical sense . They were absurd, but more in a D&D/can keep fighting for hours straight sort of way. While Odysseus was certainly intelligent, and a skilled fighter, he never at an point does anything truly absurd, like slaughter half a million men in an afternoon (well, there was that bit where he offed around a hundred suitors in his dinner hall in a couple minutes…), his slaughter of unarmed drunk naked people aside. or block arrows with his sword, or break the walls of Troy with the sheer power of his mind. From what I recall from the Aeneaid two of the major characters are shot down by normal arrows. Beowulf may have been hardcore, I mean ripping a monsters arm off and swimming for days straight are pretty cool, but its not Final Fantasy in terms of absurdity (and it is hinted he is a damn liar when it comes to the swimming). I realize that Exalted is a game focused primarily on exactly that style of play, i.e. people who could watch the final main group fight in Kill Bill part one and didn’t die of laughter at its stupidity, so my complaints are a little redundant, but even so I had a lot of trouble getting into that sort of gaming mindset. Finally, I settled on a happy medium, I decided that instead of imagining my game as remake of a an action movie, bad anime, Final Fantasy or anything equally stupid, I imagined it like I was in a Wuxia film, with the power range going from Curse of the Golden Flower to Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon and no farther.

I would love to go into a tangent explaining why I personally think that action movies that are generally immature, and almost always inferior to more realistic movies (and games for that matter) but I realize that that is exactly the kind of attitude that Exalted is built to avoid so just for this article I’ll put aside my normal standards and judge Exalted as it is. It’s a niche game, a game tailored to suit one particular audience. D&D is, or at least tries (until 4th edition obviously) to be the polar opposite of that, a game aimed for a more general audience, so when judging Exalted I need to remove my own personal taste, or at least limit it because the game is aimed for people with different standards, and calling something bad simply because it isn’t made my tastes bad is just absurdly petty and rude That aside, this won’t prevent me from being critical, nor applying my general standards to the game, I just will try to restrain myself from attacking the game based upon my pet peeves.

. I’m dividing this into parts, for the sake of length, so for this part I’ll just overview it, and go into details in part two. Right, first off the premise and back story. We start out with the entire world being nothing but raw Chaos, called the Wyld, which is made up of pure “essence,” material that powers the world. Then these powerful super gods known as the “Primordials” took the raw chaos of the world and shaped it into a solid form, thus bringing about “creation”. It is noteworthy that the world is flat, and has five elemental poles, which are the Chinese elements (Fire, Water, Earth, Wood, and Wind). Each has a certain “pole” or center of power across the world, Fire is to the south (deserts), Wind to the north (tundra) water to the west (you figure it out) and Forest to the east (massive forests), with a giant mountain containing the pole of earth right n the center. Past the edges of the world is the Wyld, which is total chaos and is creation without order, inhabited in Fae, also know as Raksha, who are these chaotic and insane beings who view morals almost as toys to be constantly taken advantage of. In the world there are many spirits, and the greater of these are known as gods, who channel essence (the life blood of creation) for power, and gain essence through worship. They granted certain mortals, known as Exalted ,with the blessing of essence, , who are essentially demigods.

. Even the Exalted weakest are essentially gods among men, and the most powerful are full blown demigods, with powers such as harnessing their own energy to produce magical weapons and effects, using their essence to pull of superhuman martial arts style tricks or other types of superhuman feats of strength. There are five types of Exalted, with each type having five subtypes, and if this system seems a bit familiar to you, then you have most likely played White Wolf’s “World of Darkness” which uses the exact same formula. Unlike World of Darkness, the five different categories of creations, or in this case exalted, can coexist in the same world, and in theory you can have a party with all five, or at least the four most powerful types. The Five types of Exalted are the Solar, who are the ruling caste/most powerful species of Exalted, and are the only ones explained in detail in the core rule book, i.e. the default Exalted. There are the Lunar exalted, who are animal spirits meant to be the second in command/nature folk to he Solar, and are detailed in a separate book. There are the Sidreal (don’t ask me why they are called that) who are the fortune teller/martial arts specialists, and the Dragon-Blooded, who are the most basic Exalted and act as “foot solders” to an extent. When Exalted die, their essence goes to another body, who is basically them reincarnated, the only exception being the Dragon-Blooded who die normally. People “exalt” or discover their heritage/powers around puberty.

The gods felt like they hadn’t quite ripped off Greek Mythology quite enough (but then again, who has?) and work with the Exalted to overthrow the tyrannical Titans, I mean the Primordials…..yeah. Anyways, White Wolf surprises us all by being totally original, thinking completely outside the box and totally breaking away from the boundaries of typical fantasy…..banish the great evil people to the underworld where they now activlly plot to destroy the world using evil demonic styled monsters. Ok

Anyways, so the Exalted win, then the gods go off to basically get high and party (I’m not actually kidding that much), and the Exalted are left to run the world. However before being defeated the Primordials put a curse upon the Exalted, which makes them unable to control there emotions, and thus they tend to be really overly emotional…..all the time. At first I just thought that was kinda cool, but my friend say it acts as an excuse for the game to rationalize the massive amount of overly emotional people often find in anime. I don’t know if this theory is at all valid, but it’s amusing enough that we are going to go with it. Anyways, the Exalted empire is grand and all, but has the problem of being run by a bunch of overly emotional nut jobs, who eventually begin to ruin it. So the Sidereal conspire with the Dragon Born to over throw the other Exalted, and remake the empire. Then the Fey attack, but are driven off when some random chick finds the gears that run the world and ascends to some near omipowerful being known as the “Scarlet Empress” who brings stability to the world, by driving back the Fey and rules it with an Iron fist for 800 years. In that time, the Solar Exalted are hunted down by the Dragonblood when they first form and as of such can’t make a proper come back. The Empress holds the nation firmly in her control, with the blessed Island ruling the rest of creation Roman/British style, and deliberately weakens each aspect of the government by pitting them against each other so she may not be threatened. This was all fine and good until five years ago, when the Empress suddenly just vanished and now nobody knows what to do. Because she has so effectively crippled her own nation, they have no idea how to actually run anything. The legions essentially become private armies for the noble houses and return to the blessed Island, leaving the territories free to rebel and try to get independence, and on top of all that the Solar Exalted have returned en mass and are causing trouble tying to regain their old status, the monsters beyond creation are stirring, and a massive undead army lead by the “abyssal” Exalted, who serve these demi ods called the death lords, the “Yozi” who are massive Demon lords who are the spiritual reincarnation of the primordials, and rebel forces. The world is in chaos, and only some super muscle bound heroes with crazy hair and overly revealing clothing can save the day.

Now at this point I was pretty pumped, because in case you haven’t noticed, that’s pretty awesome. A falling empire desperately clinging onto its power, I thought it would be cool to be out there trying to protect the nation….then I realized you play as the Solar. Alright, misunderstanding, still a cool idea. What I like about White Wolf is they actually make an interesting setting, a complex but still understandable back story, and makes it feel really cool to get started.

Since I’m going into the mechanics and the books itself in part too, lets just finish with the Premise. Basically the Solar Exalted are really powerful beings, blessed by the gods with essential demi god status. Now I don’t like high powered, but I we have to do high powered, Exalted seems to be doing it the right way, making it clear that the Exalted aren’t human beings, so you it feels less like a wish fulfillment power gaming fiasco, and more like a legitimately cool and interesting style of playing. Basically the Exalted all have within them this “Essence” which I is the life blood of the universe, or in conventional terms, “Awesome reduced to an energy form” that they can use to as fuel to power their defying of the laws of physics. Which is I think is a pretty good system actually, makes the world seem a bit more logical and seems to be a good way to run a high powered game. For those who are use to D&D’s system of races and classes, Exalted is like all White Wolf games, so the system is based upon the idea of you gaining experience then trading it in to gain powers and experience. The game still uses the dramatic system of World of Darkness, so that it suffers from that, but other than that the system seems sound, if radically different. In part two I’ll cover the details, but the background and general conclusion.

Just in case

My main computer has been damaged so we are re building it. So far its had no effect on the blog, but just a warning
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EE

The Comedian

So do you do stand up or what?

“What Happened to the American Dream”
“It came true….your looking at him”

Right, now that I’ve done my favorite Watchmen Character, lets move onto another vigilante psychopath from the series, save one that is much less awesome about it, the comedian. Now I don’t dislike the comedian, I think he is an interesting character in terms of moving the plot, but he always struck me as too radically right wing to be sympathetic. I realize that he is suppose to represent kinda the ‘common man’, a normal thug from the streets with a small sense of justice, but is just as given to brutality and self serving ideals out of hedonistic selfishness, as well as using the American fanaticism during the Cold War as an excuse to let out his inner killer, and is little more than a brute. I do like his fatalism through and his massive insecurity.

So anyways, alignment. So the Comedian is certainly evil. He murders people in Nam, including his lover/his unborn child, has attempted to rape a comrade, and he attacks and brutalizes people, generally being an evil bastard. So yeah, evil but what kind. Lawful is out, because he is far too spontaneous and lacks any real moral code, but what is it? I’d be tempted to say NE, as he seems to be focused on himself more than anybody else. While he doesn’t have much of a code, he isn’t chaotic for its own sake, and seems to work to help himself first. But in the end, I’d say CE. He lacks any real focus to himself. While he does work for his own self interest, he is more focused on his own personal pleasure than anything else, and doesn’t really seem in control of his life, acting off his temper, his lust, or his greed, what ever he feels at the time. And its worth noting that when he discovers the big villain’s evil plot, he just collapses, breaks into his arch rival’s house, and has a mental collapse after heavily drinking, then going home. He is driven by his emotions more than anything else, so I’m going to go with CE.

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EE

Vigilante part 3 Light

"With this i can become invincible.  Now if only i knew how to read.  Hmmmm, is this the right way"

“I am Justice”

                        Light

            Right, now we are going to go with one of the most popular anime villain protagonists, Light from Death note.  Now I always liked Light, because he was such an interesting protagonist.  Its far more interesting to have a egomaniacal, vigilante with a god complex, kind of an interesting idea.  I like that he used the death note to “purge” the society”, it made for a more interesting story.  And for once I was rooting for the good guy, which normally doesn’t happen.  For those of you who don’t know, Light is a elitist super genius who finds a note called the “Death Note”, a note book where writing there name in it will kill people.  So Light does what anyone of use would do if we were a closet sociopath with a god complex.  He starts to write down the names of all the people he considers evil, killing criminals en mass.  So yeah, if you haven’t figured out, he is an evil bastard, if a cool character.  But what kind of evil.  Now, I’m first to remind you that the anime only had 26 episodes, and ended there.  Nothing happened after than, and any other series that people might mention doesn’t exist, neither does anybody named Near, pseudonym for Canon Sue.  So in that sense, I’d say LE.  While he is a self serving bastards and does kill people who get in his way, he has a bit of a code. He doesn’t kill people who commit manslaughter, nor people who’s guilt is in question.  He does murder people in prison for the “greater good” but that’s more ends justifies the means.  He also acts lawful, very focused, very organized, very uptight (ok last one is a stereotype but still).  So yeah.  Wasn’t as hard as I expected.  

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EE

Scar, Vigilantes part 2

damnit, this was a good shirt you bastard.  

“A man who inflicts suffering can not rest. His guilty mind won't allow it”

“: There's no need for you to prove that you exist, because soon you won't”

“Scar: I will give you a moment to pray.

Edward: Thanks for the gesture, but I don't believe. Stopped a long time ago.”

“Scar: Yet another soul who departs from God's path. Death will be swift.”

“Scar: What a righteous day this is turning into! That you would come here and save me the tribulations of finding you! Blessed God, full of grace.”

“Scar: I am an instrument of divine judgment!”

“Scar: You don't have any right to see my God!”

            Scar

Scar, from the excellent Full Metal Alchemists Anime/Manga is actually one of my favorite characters.  Following his people’s genocide, he is a one man killing crusade, determined to kill off the state military leaders responsible, not stopping until he  can kill as many state alchemists he can or die in the process.  Scar was also one of my favorite characters in the story, in part because I think that the determinates “never relent, never surrender” ideal of him is kinda admirable, in part because I think he is the most justified of most vigilantes, as he fights out of religious beliefs against a fascist militaristic genocidal state.  But I think the real reason why I like Scar in terms of vigilantes, is that unlike most characters of that type, he has self doubt and does question himself.  As his murderers are driven out of a sense of vengeance, cultural hatred, and religious duty.  I think his honest religious devotion to his cause and his tendency to question himself really makes him an interesting character compared to most vigilantes, now he is different in the anime and the manga (as is everything in FMA, they are totally different). 

            In the manga, he is a priest before the genocide of his people, and is shown as a rather conservative person, as he rejects his elders brothers pleas for moderate ideas and fights against threats to there “cultural purity”.  And yet, he doesn’t do so out of zealotry, so much as actual beliefs in those being a threat to his culture (he is kinda right)and he is doesn’t attack his brother for his ideals, just voices objections.  And he does honestly act revolted when he talks to the ultra conservative members of his sect who wish to use alchemy to commit a counter genocide.  He is far more powerful and committed than his anime counterpart, as well as more ruthless and cold.  He is clearly evil, he murders innocent who get in his way, as well as innocents who had nothing to do with the genocide, such as the main character. And while he does question his beliefs, he never does admit he was wrong or give up on his ideals.  So evil, but I’d say LE, as he is very devout and has a sense of justice, when threatened by a person who’s parent he killed, he says “you have a right to shoot me, and if you don’t shoot I’ll leave you alone.  But the moment you pull that trigger, I will consider you my enemy and will fight to kill you”, which shows that he is very concerned about the justice of his cause, and when murder is “justified”.  So I’d peg him as LE.

            His Anime counter part is different, if not radically so.  Instead of being a priest in the war, he was a child solider, and lacks the priest back ground, so he is more of a normal guy who is just walking around killing Alchemists.  He is conflicted with far more self doubt than his manga counterpart, and seems a little more reluctant to fight, through that might be because he is not as powerful as his anime counterpart.  He does however actually get upset about his pass murderers, and seems more bothered by the idea of a cycle of hatred, and in his relationship with the Elric brothers, does seem to realize that killing wont’ solve anything.  And yet, he does still plan to kill 7,000 people, most of whom are just solders obeying orders, in taking down a rebellion (and lets be fair, with Scar leading them, they have a valid point).   So he too is evil, through nicer than his anime counterpart.  And as he does too have a code of honor and true devotion, he is also LE in the end.

            As for the new anime, I’m not sure how that will turn out.  I suspect that it is a more loyal anime adaptation compared to the current anime, which has a totally different plot (not that makes it any less awesome mind you), so I suspect that it will be the same.  Personally, I’m looking forward to the new anime, through I doubt it can be as awesome as the manga or old anime because it won’t be as unique, but we will see.

From

EE