ZOMG, ultimate alien movie/Warty Goblin pay attention

Right.....i hated Dances with Wolves, Titanic, Last Samerai, Ferngully, and the smurfs. I am going to see avatar tommorow, which is most likely going to be one of the worst movies i have ever seen in my life. To brace myself for this horror, i have decided to watch district 9 for the first time....which was FUCKING AWESOME. Oh my god, i loved that movie, it goes on my top 101 best movies of all time (list still in making). Now, the real question, can the few hundred million dollar budget avatar film compete against the 20 million District 9? Coming to you....next weds day maybe? personal life, IB projects and last college application so maybe? Anyways, regardless, my hiatus is going to be over by next few weeks, because no more SATS, or college essays, so more reviews and more thoughts


Warty Goblin i want to ask you to watch these films too and write your take on them, i saw you on the avatar thread, very impressed, what did you think? Also i haven't commented on your game reviews cause i never played them, but thanks for posting

from
EE

Yet more digital distribution insanity

Continuing the saga of me buying more games than I can play for minuscule prices, today I nabbed the relatively unknown shooter Section 8 for a grand total of $12.50 off of Direct2Drive. Nor is this a two year old game like the last two I grabbed- Section 8 released to an unfortunate amount of apathy back in September of this year for $49.99, or $10 more than that if for some reason you wanted it on XBox 360.

So to recap, in this last week, I nabbed three somewhat obscure, but quality games for under $20, just by keeping on top of sales. Best of all, I never even had to come into contact with the horror that is buying games in an actual store from the flesh and grease beings that inhabit those despicable spaces. No, instead they are delivered, byte by byte, directly to the comfort of my room. At this rate I'll never have to pay full price, or submit to the indignity of EB Games ever again.

And even better, Games for Windows Live just got into the digital distribution scene this week. Now I don't share many people's pathological hatred for GFWL, but I'm not a particular fan of the service either so I don't expect to making extensive use of it. This is still good news however, because it means even more competition between digital distributers, and thus lower prices all around. It also shows some long overdue interest in PC gaming on Microsoft's part, and this is certainly a good thing- just so long as they don't try to turn the PC into a differently shaped XBox.

In other news, I continue to marvel at the myth that PC gaming is prohibitively expensive. I just picked up enough gaming material for two months at the very least, for about a third of what a new console title costs. Now of course none of these titles are brand new, so a person could argue that the used software sales of the consoles are something of a counterpoint to this. The problem with that is that used games are physical copies. This means that

1) somebody had to buy the game,

2) somebody had to sell it to

3) a store near you.

In short it means you'll probably have pretty good luck finding mainstream titles from a year or two ago, but less luck with the obscure stuff. Now if mainstream is how you roll, that's great, but there's a lot of really interesting titles that are less than well known. With used games, you might get lucky, and you might not.

With digital distribution you're almost certain to find pretty much all of the more recent niche titles because they do very well on Steam, Impulse and their ilk, and you'll be able to find them there permanently. And for really, really cheap.

Space Rangers 2 is...different

This is the sort of game that drives genre purists nuts. I was just finishing the tutorial, and so far I'd played a space trading game with some wonky turn based combat. Fly around the galaxy, buy and sell, get better guns to defend your stuff with, then get better ships to hold more better guns on, we've all been there. Here's where the weird sets in.

Most space games give you a static map, but in Space Rangers 2 everything moves according to some version of Newton's laws, albeit with some rather extreme velocities. This means that planets actually revolve, and it's not particularly uncommon to fly across a solar system only to end up several days behind the world you were aiming for.

This might be the first game I've ever played where I have to lead a target just to travel.

The same thing is true of combat, you have to figure out where your enemy is going to fly to, so you can fly there as well and then beat on their hull with your nasty space guns. Of course while this happens planets are zipping around, you might accidentally be struck by a passing asteroid, and if you fly too close to the sun you explode. So at this point we've got turn based tactics and economic simulation combined with astrophysics on crack all in one game.

So anyways, I was finishing the tutorial, running a couple simple trading missions introducing me to the concepts of buy low sell high, when I was prompted to go through a planetary invasion mission. I clicked yes, and the next thing I knew I was staring at an honest to gods RTS. No joke.

I was given command of a factory to churn out robots, my enemy on the other side of the map had a factory to produce robots of their own, and there were some resource buildings in the middle. OK, I'm playing an RTS inside the turn based tactical economic/hyper astrophysics sim. That's perfectly normal, right?

Heeding the old saying "When in RTS land, tank rush" I immediately clicked on the 'build robot' button. That took me to the unit creation screen.

Now I was building robots inside the RTS inside the space sim with wonky physics and clever tactical combat. Actually the system was pretty cool, there were different chassis, a variety of legs/treads, and a nice variety of weapons, ranging from Gatling guns to nuclear warhead that destroy whatever robot carries them. One module jams enemy radar and at the same time protects from nuclear weapons. Not only can't they find you, they can't nuke you either- pick one up for the paranoid survivalist on your Christmas list today!

So I assembled my robots, and rolled out to blow stuff up. On my way I noticed a button that say Direct Control. Naturally I pressed that one. Amazingly enough, that allowed me to directly control the selected robot with mouse and WASD keys. It wasn't particularly deep, but on the other hand I was still circlestrafing other robots with lasers, and that's a win in my book.

Now I was playing a mech sim inside an RTS with unit customization inside a space trader with quasi-real physics and tactical combat.

Amazingly, I am making none of this up.

Digital Distribution is my new God

So I bought two new games today. Guess what I paid?

$7.00 USD

And people say PC gaming is prohibitively expensive.

Now granted these were not new games by any means. The first, Ostfront: Red Orchestra 41-45 came out in 2006, and was not what you would call mainstream. It's a realistic sort of multiplayer FPS that I purchased because it has (braindead) bots. At $5, what's to lose? Besides it features bolt action rifles, where you have to click fire between each shot to chamber the next round. I've played the game for a grand total of maybe 30 minutes, and already I'm in love with it. It's like ARMA, with most of the useless depth taken away in favor of interesting stuff, like trying to guess how many bullets are left in your magazine (not enough) and whether or not you can deploy a machine gun on top of a dead horse (no).

The other $2 were wantonly splurged on Space Rangers 2: Rise of the Dominators, which I'm firing up as I type. I've read reviews that describe the game as being basically insane, and it's from an eastern European studio. I'm not sure if its possible for a game to emit a pheromone, but that combination fills me with unbridled lust. Further bulletins as events warrant.

Higurashi Season two, disappointment strikes back

Look, i don't care how good you are with that, you can't beat bullets with a bat, shut up

Higurashi season two

Now last time, I wrote a flowery review, endlessly praising this anime series to the hilt, so here is where I put on my objective pants and start actually bringing out the actual complaints about the show. First off, the title. Fans of the series will note I’m just calling the seasons basically “Season one and Season two” and aren’t using the proper Japanese names. And there is no way I can say this without coming off as a western ethnocentric elitist, so I’m going to just go with my gut and say, that I can’t understand any of the season differences. The words are very similar, and hard to pronounce, especially for me who doesn’t know more than 4 words in Japanese (long days of watching Kurosawai films has taught me the word for moron through), so its hard to difference, especially for the various “story arcs” within the series, each with its own Japanese title. I just wish fans would translate it, so I can tell what part of the story I’m referring too. But western elitists nature aside, lets move on to other criticisms, and by that I mean season two.

Now if your reading this, you either don’t care about spoilers, or have finished season one, so let me put it here, I don’t hate the second season, I was just really disappointed by it. The first season ended wonderfully, and I know this is a cliché, but after a series of multiple homicides the series finally ends with all of the characters learning the power of friendship and how to work together, and the final episode they all walk off, alive and sane. And I liked that ending. It may have been cliché, but at least it fit the theme of the story, and I don’t mind cliché story endings if I feel like the characters earned it and it wasn’t achieved through massive Deus ex Machina. The characters eventually worked together and over came the curse of paranoia. And I liked that, it fit the theme, it came at a hard cost, and it really explored the theme of friendship vs. isolation within the series. And the second season started off well. After an utterly forgettable first episode, the first arch of the season picks up where the last left off, except the group, having overcome their own internal paranoia and infighting, they eventually try to move on to overcome the sinister nature of the town. They make some headway, but it is clear that the town is still nasty, and then….they die. They all die, the whole lot of them, town wins, and the groundhog loop starts again. And I liked that, I mean, just as I fell into the lure of the heroes being undefeatable not that they have found the power of friendship, then they are all brutally slaughtered. And I’m always a fan of the whole cast being massacred, keeps the audience on their toes. And so we are back to the first seasons formula, of various story arcs as where the characters try to fight against the corruption nature of the town. This season is on a more optimistic note however, as the characters, while unable to remember past lives (except for our heroine Rika of course) seem to have overcome their total inability to trust each other, and are acting more functional and loving towards each other, implying the last season wasn’t a complete waste. The next “life” are almost like repeats of season one, except when the characters are placed into these dangerous situations, they learn to trust people and turn towards others rather than go into paranoia and hatred, except that Statoko’s abusive uncle has returned. The next arc is rather interesting, not even really about restoring the town and overcoming evil, but instead dealing with the actually legitimately hard issue of child abuse. And the series actually handles it rather maturely, showing that the Social Services often don’t know when to step in, and how hard it can be for them to determine actual abuse (especially hard in Japan where the standards are different and blaming the victim is ok), an issue made even worst when the victim often refuses to help. Child abuse is a real life problem that is still pretty hard to figure out, and I applaud the show for not having somebody just beat up the uncle and everything solve itself (a method show explicitly to not work in season one). But there way of solving it, while plausible, doesn’t seem to be very helpful, I mean, most abused children don’t have powerful mob dons ready to step in to help them out. Regardless, the problem is solved, everything is wonderful, and then, yet again, it ends horribly and the cycle goes on again.

Now season two had me going, and I was almost willing to place it better than most, when it shot itself in the foot. They explain the town. You know how the town is some weird evil presence, weather it be gods, or haunted presence, or spirits, but something sinister, mysterious and almost beyond mortal understanding. Hell, it could be in part just insanity in the part of some of the characters, trigged by the town, or maybe not even the town at all. Maybe all of the cast are just nuts, and the town is good, constantly time looping everything. But importantly, it isn’t known and that is why its scary. Its like in the shining, nobody actually really knows what’s up with the hotel, or to how much of an extent its effecting Nickleson, except it is a TV show rather than a movie, and can draw it out more. And yet…..they explain it. And not just in a cool way, they explain it less than half way through the series and call it simply a weird scientific illness that effects people’s brains, but can only grow in this climate and blah blah blah. Now, I like realism, but seriously? Scientific plague? There is time looping in this series, why the hell do you need to a weird scientific explanation. Also having the entire village being a weird government conspiracy and a massive scientific experiment, its just tacky. It ruins any sense of suspense or horror, and makes the whole appeal of the series mute. Most importantly, it ruins the sense of guilt. While the various characters who go mad are clearly influenced by something supernatural, all the magic seems to do is take their already existing urges and desires and amplify them to the point where they are willing to kill other people. But the characters still bear some guilt, Shion is a ruthless, jealous bitch with control issues, and her family problems are still just as real. Keichi is still an egotistical selfish brat who thinks himself above everybody, and Rena is an emotionally disturbed nut with a death wish regardless of weather or not the town is haunted. And yet, by making it an illness you remove any sense of guilt or responsibility from the victims. Jack’s madness in The Shinning is the product of the hotel, but the foundations for his abusive nature were laid before he ever came, it just preyed upon the darkness already in him. Part of the appeal of the show was the feeling that the characters were acting this way because of their own sins, and thus the moral at the end of the first season wall all the more fulfilling, recognizing their faults and moving on. If its an illness, then it should be impossible to ever over come it, and even then the whole point of the show seems wasted. The main villain is revealed to be non other than the nurse to the town doctor Takano. Now don’t get me wrong, she was a pretty nifty side character as the intelligent but clearly mentally disturbed detective, but as a main villain she just comes off as uninspiring, pathetic, and childish. While I like he back story (Horary, Japanese militarism) it lacks any feel of humanity and the “FOR SCIENCE” feel to it just lacks any real punch. The only part of the reveal I liked was that the janitors were revealed to be a tactical military unit, and in the first half of the season are just as sinisterly competent as they were early, with some shocking scenes as they ruthlessly purge the local police. But by the last two arcs they lost any sense of competence and are easily beaten by a bunch of kids. Now, the second to last arc almost redeemed itself, even with the silly premise. The heroes, after defeating the secret service, uniting the town, and discovering the mystery of the illness, the main characters are about to defeat the main villain with a friendship speech to defeat all friendship speeches when…they are all killed by a rapid fire gun. Ok, that’s awesome. And after all the suffering the main characters have endured, I would be inclined to forgive most annoyingly cliché happy endings, but the final arc took it to a level of absurdity that was just annoying. Basically, every character in the entire series showed up to fight the bad guys, and…

Maybe I am somewhat ignorant of the working of the secret service in Japan, but seriously, no matter how good of you are with a baseball bat, you can’t just beat elite agents trained agents with guns. I mean, the main characters take out dozens of elite agents, relying on a few police men, some mob hit men, and things picked up around the house. These guys are elite, they are special opts, there is no way you can justify the ease in which they are taken out. I mean, they have access to machine guns and sniper rifles, and yet seem unable to use them. The last few episodes are essentially a wish fulfillment as the main characters just run through every obstacle thrown at them, and we get to watch the main villains yell really loudly going “this can’t be happening” again and again and again. In short, it was just sort of a flop at the end, and honestly, I’d be happy if the second season never happened.