Darker than Black: Gemini of the Meteor ep.02-03

Why do character designers think -_- is a good facial expression to represent evil and/ or insanity?

Darker then Black: Gemini of the Meteor (originally sub-titled "Sagitarius of the Quasar" and then "Capricorn of the Cepheid Variable") continues to intrigue with these two episodes.

Modern Warfare 2 makes you shoot people, the world freaks out

You may be familiar with the kerfuffle over a leaked video depicting an optional section of Modern Warfare 2 that lets you play as a terrorist. I don't know the full context, but you and some allies wade into a crowded airport with automatic weapons and start unloading said weapons into civilians.The controversy has gotten to the point that the Australian government is threatening to refuse the game a 15A classification (not that that really means anything any more).

I watched the footage. It's violent and disgusting ans shocking.

So what?

You could put a scene like this in a film and no one would bat an eye-lid. Schindler's List has far worse material and no one is trying to ban it. The very idea would be ludicrous, offensive even. Yet for some reason having violence against innocents in a video game is not acceptable.

Maybe people think it's more shocking when you're actually acting out the violence yourself. If so, I have news for you: video games have been doing this for years. Hitman 2, released seven years ago, featured a level set in an office building lobby crowded with civilians. If you so wished, you could equip an assault rifle and go on a bloody rampage. Blood Money had at least three levels with a similar set up. You weren't supposed to run around shooting people randomly, but the game didn't penalize you for it. And of course the GTA games have been letting players depopulate entire cities since 1997. It's true that GTA atracted a lot of controversy, but most of it wasn't about the fact that you could kill civilians if you wanted to. And as far as I can tell no one even noticed that Hitman let you gun down hundreds of innocent people whenever the fancy struck you.

But wait, maybe that's not the point. Maybe it's the fact that you're supposed to shoot innocent people that's getting everyone so up in arms. If so, it would be an odd complaint. Like I said, the whole scene is skippable and while I can understand someone being umcomfortable with the idea of being told to shoot unarmed people, I don't see how that makes the section in question inherently more repulsive.

I think there are three main reasons for this controversy. Number one, people are panicky, reactionary, small-minded morons who care deeply about the content of fictional stories even if they never intend to see them. Okay, that wasn't really the first reason. I was just venting.

Numer one: The "T" word. Terrorists are bad and having them in things is therefore bad, for reasons no one seems willing to explain.

Linked to this is the second reason, the odd and irrational idea that putting something in a game is automatically glorifying it. Video games, the reasoning seems to go, are more about entertainment than other visual mediums and so anything in them is suppoed to be fun. Therefore, Infinity Ward is trying to make terrorist activities seem like fun. To return to my Schindler's List point- ultimately, people watch that movie and others like it for entertainment as well, yet no one has ever suggested that Spielberg was trying to glorify the actions of the Nazis. Just the opposite, a fact that everyone seems to automatically grasp. So why can't they see Modern Warfare 2 in the same light? The entire sequence is obviously meant to be horrifying. Why does that stop being true once you put people in control of the action instead of making them watch it?

The last reason is tied in with the usual attitude people have to controversial issues in video games- they're just not allowed to depict things that movies and books are. I remember a few years ago a semi-educational DS game about the Holocaust was announced. It took place in the imagination of a young boy in a concentration camp. Instantly a huge furor arose over the game, with one guy (I think he was actually a survivor of the holocaust himself) outright stating that he would have had no problem with the idea if it was a movie, but a video game? That's not on. Why not? No reason was given. Similar complaints have been aimed at any game attempting to portray the events of 9/11, even, in one case, a mod that was historically accurate and intended to be purely educational. Again, this was after two movies about the attacks were already well into production, neither of which got much attention. But a video game showing the same thing? God Forbid. In one case an actual video game magazine called one of the 9/11 games "the most sickening thing they had ever seen" despite the fact that it didn't seem to include any violence or explixit gore at all.

Ultimately the root of all of this is the still-pervasive idea that video games are for children, or at the very least are more similar to toys and to story-telling media. So when people see them depicting terrorist attacks it's as if someone came along and made a lego set about the same thing.

This is a ridiculous and out-dated view. Video games should be free to depict anything movies and books can (ie anything) without instigating moral panics. If Infinity Ward's terrorist gameplay section helps wake people up to this fact, I say fair play to them. 

Big DS announced

Another version of the DS?

While the DS's screens are quite small, I can't say I've ever had a problem with them. Apparently Nintendo is aiming this at people who use their DSi to watch videos and listen to music, neither of which I would do even if I had one.

Since it will be more expensive than any current model and has the same screen resolution, I think I'll hold out for the DS 2.

Get your grains of salt ready- WiiHD rumours

Some speculation on the successor to the Wii has supposedly been leaked, according to this site.

For the most part this is the kind of thing anyone could guess. That Nintendo's next console will support HD is pretty much a given. The claim that it will have a Blu-Ray drive is a bit more iffy- I can imagine Nintendo being contrary and deciding not to include one- particularly as the stated aim of adding the functionality is to stop piracy. I'm not aware of that being a particularly big problem for Nintendo.

However, I'm extremely skeptical of this claim:

"- The release date is scheduled for third quarter of 2010.

[...]

Moreover, Nintendo wants to make a worlwide annoucement, only one month before release date. Huge publicity and Viral Marketing will be utilized to create the Buzz."

The plausability of this really hinges on whether it's is supposed to be a completely new console or just an updated version of the current Wii. I can just about imagine Nintendo pulling an Apple and announcing an incremental upgrade shortly before the console launches- Sony did it with the new PS3, after all- but doing the same for a brand new console would be insane. When the Wii 2 is announced it will be at E3 or another large press event, with all the fanfare and hype that usually goes along with a new console reveal.

As for the idea of the console coming out next year.... well, I'm undecided about that. Assuming this is a true successor, getting in early on the next generation certainly seemed to help Microsoft along. Even still, the first half of 2010 is probably more likely.

Bioshock 2 trailer

I managed (just barely) to avoid watching Gametrailer's apparently spoilerific expose on Bioshock 2, so I was pleased to see a short trailer showcasing some of the new locations and weapons that were featured there, but wthout all the plot revelations. Instead we just get a cool voice over from an evil woman with a vaguely English accent (English people in video games are always evil). I don't know who she is, but she certainly seems like a cooler villain than Andrew Ryan, that's for sure.

Some other interesting parts of the trailer was a glimpse of the Little Sister Orphanage, which I can easily imagine being this game's Fort Frolic, and some really creepy clips of what appears to be a cult built around the Little Sisters.

I just realised that if the game hadn't been delayed I'd be playing it right about now. I'm sad.

"Epic Mickey" gets less epic

I'm just going to get this out of the way right now- they really need to change the name of this game, because over here "Mickey" is a fairly outdated but still widely recognizable slang term for penis, and so "epic mickey" puts one in mind of.... well, you know.

So anyway, Epic Mickey, Warren Spector's intruiging "dark mickey mouse" game that's been kicking around for awhile in concept art form, has been revealed with proper screenshots and everything, and.... I'm dissapointed.

The artwork for this game got me interested with it's portrayal of a wonderfully dark and twisted rendition of familiar Disney icons, whereas the actual game looks far closer to a generic cartoon platformer. It has none of the apocalyptic feel of the original drawings and paintings. I can only assume that artwork was just a proof of concept, which was later flitered through another artist for use in the actual game.

 Before:

After:

 

At this point I should add a number of caveats. The game is scheduled to come out next Autumn, ie it's a year or more away. And we've only seen a few screenshots of a few small areas. Given that, it's not really fair to pass final judgement on the game. It's quite possible there are parts (such as the "Cartoon Wasteland", a hub world that the initial artwork seemed to be portraying) that are more similar to what I was expecting. And who knows, maybe the developers will see the light and totally re-jigger the game's appearence- Borderlands did it after the game was nearly finished, so it's definitely not too late.

I should also point out that all of this is totally seperate from my thoughts on the actual game as a whole. The actual graphics are pretty good for a Wii game, and to be fair that first screenshot with the stained glass window is actually pretty cool. The gameplay seems to have some really interesting twists and the story is very much in the spirit of those first pieces of artwork, with Mickey transported into a Wasteland created by Yensid (apparently a sorcerer from Fantasia and yes, his name is "Disney" backwards) inhabited by minor and forgotten Disney characters and ruled over by Oswald the Lucky Rabbit. There will be a branching morality system and Specter has stated that he's taking inspiration from the His Dark Materials books by Phillip Pullman (!).

In short, I actually think Epic Mickey looks like a really interesting game, standing head and shoulders above most of the over-hyped upcoming releases in terms of imagination. It's just a shame someone has decided not to give it a visual style to match it's story and gameplay.


(Incidentally, Spector apparently harbours a desire to make a game based on Northern Lights/The Golden Compass. My only response to this is yes please. And get the guy who did that awesome concept art for this game on board.)

My Thoughts on Up

I went to see Up yesterday in that new fangled 3D I've been hearig so much about. Here are my long-winded, rambling thoughts on the movie.

(spoilers- I'm assuming you've seent the film already, if you haven't don't read this)

Play this flash game now

I like flash games. They're free, don't take up too much time and frequently more imaginative then commercial video games. Such is the case with Gretel and Hansel, a point and click adventure based on.... well, you know. This version seems to have a slight feminist bent to it, as you control a slingshot-wielding Gretel while your brother is a bit of a twat. (I sure hope Gretel is actually the girl, or that's not going to make any sense).

As you can see, the graphics are rendered in moody watercolours. That combined with the music gives the whole thing a wonderfully dark old-school feel, like Banjo Kazooie crossed with Braid. Check out episode 01 on Newgrounds.

Let's Watch Toward the Terra: Episode 17

Episode 17:

 

Let's Watch Toward the Terra: Episode 13

Episode 13: What hides on the Planet

Here's the 13th episode of Toward the Terra, retroactively posted because I was too lazy to do it before the 14th one. Apologies for the image quality, I hadn't really gotten a handle on this whole screen-capping thing when I took them.

Darker than Black: Gemini of the Meteor episode 01

I watched about five or six episodes of Darker than Black before being stopping. It had a seemingly engaging overall plot, but the two-episode arcs really didn't hold my interest. So I'm glad to see that this sequel series seems (*three word alliteration combo*) to be a very different kind of anime altogether.

First off, although obviously destined to focus on Japan, this episode at least is set in Russia, which is a welcome change of location for an anime series. The main character this time round is an ordinary person rather than a super-powered bad-ass, and she's surprisingly likeable. It's very hard to find female anime characters who are more than otaku bait these days outside of shojou series, so I'll take anything I can get.

Even more intrugingly, the super-powered bad ass from the previous series is a villain. Like I said, I didn't watch Darker Than Black to the end so I don't know whether I should be surprised that Hei is a bad guy this time round (or is he? Maybe he's working for the good guys and the people he kills here are evil, or this is one of them Moral Ambiguity shows. I'm really not sure). At the moment I have enough background information to tell what's going on vis a vis the contractors and their super-power OCD, but my ability to enjoy this series will depend on whether that's enough to get me through.

One thing I remember about the original Darker than Black was the fight scenes. This episode ends on a short but sweet one featuring some really smooth animation and camera tricks. Plus two characters get mercilessly bumped off, both of whom I had already grown to like. Always a plus.

A Certain Scientific Railgun episode 01 review

I should say up front here that I didn't watch the series this is based off (A Certain Magical Index) and know next to nothing about the setting or plot. In fact I'm really just watching it because the show's title is hilarious.

With that out of the way, lets see what this thing is all about.

Let's Watch Toward the Terra: episode 16

Episode 16: Omen of Change

Let the Right One In- Movie Review

The news of a remake/ readaptation of Let The Right One In intersected neatly with my local video place getting the movie to rent on Blu Ray, so I decided to give it a whirl. There are few times when I see an adaptation of a novel and come out of it thinking the movie was better, but this might be one of them.

The script was written by the author of the original novel. When I first heard this I thought it could lead to a bloated movie that tries to include absolutely everything from the book, but thankfully that's not the case at all. Lindqvist went through his story with an critical and un-biased eye and took out the side stories that sometimes dragged the book down, making more room for the central relationship between Eli and Oskar. What we get is a streamlined, faster version of the original with a lot of the waffle cut out.

I do have some complaints I'd like to get out of the way here. Unfortunately some quality material got cut out as well, such as nearly all of Hakan's characterization and backstory. The book's Hakan was a complex character who we got to see battling against his darker impulses and struggling to keep his action rooted in good intentions, no matter how delusional the attempt was, whereas I can imagine people seeing the movie version and coming away with the impression that he's quite a fatherly figure towards Eli, in which case they're in for quite a shock if they read the book.

Eli and Oskar also lose some complexity. The actors portraying them do a fine job, but we just don't get into their heads as much as in the book. Subsequently Oskar isn't nearly as creepy at the start as he was originally, and some of the more humerous scenes between him and Eli unfortunately aren't included.

The cinematography of the film is amazing from the outset and just keeps getting better, producing some real "holy crap" moments using plain old lighting techniques and camera angles rather than specia effects (the one exception being an extremely cool sequence involving Eli's eyes)

My overall impression of the movie is that everybody involved did not set out to make a vampire movie, but a romance film that just happens to feature a vampire. This is most noticable in the (extremely good) soundtrack, which could just as easily be used in a "normal" coming-of-age drama.

Thoughts on the Let the Right One In remake

So IGN has an article up about the cast for the remake of Let The Right One In, which is surprising because I didn't even know they were doing a remake. Although I haven't seen the movie yet, I've read (and loved) the book it's based on.

The rampant pessmism and gnashing of teeth that accompanies any announcement of a big-budget remake/adaption of anything always annoys me, as there are multiple major exceptions to the attitude that Hollywood ruins everything with it's vile attempts to make money (The Ring is, in my opinion, far to superior the original Japanese Ring). So I'm going to try and treat this fairly and not jump to conclusions.

I'm not familiar with either of the actors they've chosen to portray the movie's versions of Oskar and Eli, so I can't really comment on that. What I can comment on is the names chosen for the characters: Owen and Abby. I really thought they'd just change Oskar to Oscar. Maybe it sounds too old fashioned or something?

Abby for Eli is a bit.... iffy. I always thought the name Eli has a kind of timeless quality to it- you could just as easily imagine it applied to a 12 year old girl as you could to an immortal vampire. Abby on the other hand comes across as kind of childish. I don't really get why this one needs changing anyway- Eli obviously isn't a very common girl's name in America, but it wouldn't seem that wierd or out of place, and could enhance the character's mystique.

The location for casting- New Mexico- also causes me a bit of alarm since it's a far cry from the frigid location of the book and original movie. I'm not one of these fans who insist nothing can ever be changed so I won't boycott the movie if they decide to ditch the snowy locales, but I always liked the setting of the book.

The only detail about the movie that I'm completely not liking is the title- the producers have for some reason decided to go with "Let Me In", the ininspired moniker that the book was laboured with in America. Okay, let's face it, Let The Right One In doesn't really make a whole lot of sense, but it sounds bad-ass. Let Me In sounds like the title to a cheesy slasher flick.

EDIT: Okay, I've done some digging around and some new details have come to light.

According to this page this movie isn't actually a remake the of the Swedish film- it's another adaptation of the book. I'm prepared to view it as such as long as it differs in some signficant way from the first movie. I'm guessing most people aren't going to realise this, however.

Also:

This isn't actually a theatrical poster, but rather a mock-up used to sell the film to studios. I guess I was way off-base about there being no snow in the movie, apparently New Mexico is just one filming location among many.

It's a pretty cool poster. I can't help but notice that "Abby" looks extremely similar to how Eli did in the Swedish version. Even her clothes are similar, which makes me somewhat suspicious of the claim that this is a readaptation, since Eli's initial clothes in the movie were different from what she was wearing in the book.