Thursday, April 30, 2009

Thoughts on FreeSpace 2

I think the high point of that campaign was probably the NSF undercover missions. You wouldn't expect that sort of storytelling potential in a space sim. I mean, I dunno about you, but I actually found myself forming a relationship with Commander Snipes, the undercover handler. The voice actor did a great job fleshing him out. And then later, when he goes missing... it's just crushing. It seemed Commander Snipes just ended up being another faceless casualty in the grand NSF war. Like tears in rain.

Until of course you go rescue him in that SOF nebula mission. The only nebula mission I really got irritated with. It got so frustrating finding and losing the various nav buoys. The fact that you got to pilot the sexy Erinyes didn't *quite* make up for that.

I really wonder how long FreeSpace 2's development cycle was. Cause if ever there was a game that was perfectly polished and stable on launch, that's the one I'd point to. It got one patch, but I think that was just correcting some minor multiplayer issues.

I'm not sure if you guys agree with this, but the way I see it... FreeSpace 2 still holds up today. You can play it and it'll hold up in both graphics and gameplay. Annnd... I don't think you can say the same for most old games. Mind you, I'm not talking about Open FS2. I meant playing it without mods, it still holds up. Obviously the mods make it look much better of course. But you install vanilla FS2, and aside from some small issues like the text not aligning correctly, the game still looks and plays great. And this is a game that was released in 1999, ten fucking years ago. You really have to wonder what sort of drugs those Volition folks were on back in the day, to craft a masterpiece like that. It's very telling when the worst thing you can say about a game is that its pilot avatar pics look a little ugly. What else is there to say? I dunno. It's a crying shame it wasn't a financial success.

Tuesday, April 28, 2009

ExoSquad: Memorable Quotation of the Day

Episode 1x11 - The First Step

Thrax: "We succeed or fail, for the glory of Phaeton?"
Glycon: "Phaeton is our leader, unfortunately."
Thrax: "Unfortunately."
Glycon: "But that's not our concern, we're soldiers. I've ordered a counterattack with all remaining forces to retake the main base. The attack will draw in the Terran e-frames, then you must lead an attack on the ExoCruisers."
Thrax: "Yes, Sir."
Glycon: "Thrax, we have one scout ship left. If the attack fails you must take as many of our people as you can and escape to Venus."
Thrax: "What about you?"
Glycon: "I will lead the counterattack."
Thrax: "You are sacrificing yourself for nothing."
Glycon: "Has it not occurred to you that we are all sacrificing ourselves for nothing? It has become Phaeton's war, not ours."

Sharos: "What are Glycon's orders?"
Thrax: "Do you never grow tired of it, Sharos? The fighting?"
Sharos: "It is what we were bred for."
Thrax: "And when the war is over? What will we do then?"
Sharos: "For us, the war will never be over."

Saturday, April 25, 2009

My 5 Favorite Films of All Time

1. The Dark Knight
The greatest superhero movie of all time. This should've won Best Picture at the Oscars. What other superhero film can you actually say that about? What Christopher Nolan did with Batman and The Joker is simply the stuff of legend. You can't just look at it as a comic book movie, you can't just look at it as an action flick, you can't just look at it as a crime drama... it's a mindblowing masterpiece of cinema. Nolan took a franchise that had become known for "Chill out, bird boy!" and somehow managed to craft a dark epic that would become the second highest grossing film of all time. To make that sort of herculean effort with minimal CGI in today's environment... the man is simply a visionary genius.

And Heath Ledger... what is there left to say about Heath Ledger? He didn't win the Oscar because he died. It wasn't a sympathy vote. He deserved it, by portraying The Joker in a way wholly unlike anything we'd ever seen before. Fuck Cesar Romero, fuck Jack Nicholson, and fuck Mark Hamill. Ledger will always be The Joker now. So many quotable lines, and even a second villain that felt natural and meshed with the plot. Who could forget that brilliant hospital scene with our first glimpse at Two Face? The way Nolan teased at it, turning his head away at just the right moment to heighten the suspense. And then the actual reveal, and hearing the gasps in the audience. Just great iconic moments.

Another iconic scene: the interrogation room. What a wonderful way to subvert the traditional interrogation. Start it in darkness, but then shift into bright light, contrasting the white room with the blackness of Batman. Also reflecting the two warring sides of Two Faces. The Batman pummels the Joker, yet somehow still ends up being helpless while the Joker is holding all the cards. This isn't the sort of stuff you expect from a superhero action film. That's why it's so wonderful. Just as the Joker turned Gotham upside down, this film has completely turned its genre upside down. My favorite scene is the ending monologue from Commissioner Gordon: "Because he's not a hero. He's a silent guardian, a watchful protector... a Dark Knight." BAM. The title card finally comes onscreen. If that didn't affect you in some manner after witnessing the last 2 and a half hours, you're just not human.

2. Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan
You have to know, Star Trek 2 was one of the first films I remember watching as a young lad. Back in the good ol days, channel 44, which would later go on to become UPN and then the CW, would rerun old movies all the time, and one of those would be Star Trek 2. This was my very first Star Trek film, and left an absolutely indelible impression on me. This film was what made me a Trekkie. It was pretty cool too, cause this was right around the time that TNG was starting up and I was able to watch that great show as it originally ran.

Then my family bought a VCR player and I recorded Star Trek 2. And rewatched it and rewatched it and rewatched it. Fuck all other films, I couldn't get sick of viewing this somewhat poor quality recording. It got to the point where I could pretty much recite the dialogue line for line as they said it onscreen. Ya know how it is, being a young kid and going all crazy trying to ape Ricardo Montalban with fun lines like "To the last... I will grapple with thee. From Hell's heart... I stab at thee! For HATE's SAKE... I spit... my last breath... at thee!" Just wonderful emotional lines that you could really rasp out. Of course, some of the dialogue made absolutely no sense back then. It took me years to figure out exactly what "Sauce for the goose" meant, for example. Still, great childhood memories.

So, that's just a bit of context to let you know how much I cherish this film. The best Star Trek film ever, and my favorite film until The Dark Knight last summer. What Nicholas Meyer pulled off was nothing short of a miracle, when you look back and see that it was following up on Star Trek The Motionless Picture. Who could have had the imagination, and force of persuasion to alter basically the entire Star Trek universe like that? Suddenly... awful pajama uniforms gave way to awesomely elegant red jacket uniforms. With that iconic clasp over the right shoulder? That feature's been copied for fucking decades now, in all kinds of scifi movies and video games. You've gotta give props, that was an amazing costume change. And the single best starship battle, STILL. You can show me all sorts of ship battles from DS9 or Nemesis, but I still hold that Mutara Nebula battle as the greatest ship to ship battle in Trek history. You cannot top that film finale. Which is strange, because it's two Federation starships battling one another.

Then you realize that's what made it great. What was great was how they made it two Federation starships fighting each other. It seems like that would be a weird dynamic, but they make it work. The Reliant is from Starfleet, but it looks totally different from the Enterprise. And I'm not just talking about the red lighting they used, which was blatant as all hell. It's got two low nacelles right under it, far apart, so it kinda looks like a mean pitbull. A pitbull in somewhat of a lean, crouched down. Small, but packing a punch. While the Enterprise is longer and much more graceful with two nacelle struts in a V, like an eagle. This really hits home when the Enterprise is cruising towards the Mutara Nebula with the Reliant hot on its heels.

The final battle is tense, just like the u-boat films which Nicholas Meyer referenced on his commentary of the DVD. But what's so important is how slow the ships move. This is what is great about Trek, they are these giant ships and they act like it. When the Reliant comes charging out of the static towards the Enterprise, we can see Kirk pivoting his chair, while ordering "Evasive starboard!" Yet the ship herself turns much more slowly then his chair pivot. We feel the engines straining for such a maneuver. Is it realistic? Oh hell no, of course not. Ships are weightless in space, yada yada yada. But it doesn't matter, because Trek ships need that sense of size and weight. After all, this is space... they have nothing but the Enterprise and an occasional alien planet. This ship is the workplace, and home, and overall landscape for 500 people. She's as much a character as any of the main characters. So to maintain the heft and importance, it is crucial that the ship not be pulling off all sorts of crazy loop-de-loops or whatnot.

So yea, Wrath of Khan still holds up. That's why it's a classic. I will always have a big goofy grin on my face while watching this film. Just can't help it. And yes, occasionally reciting a line like "Sauce for the goose, Mr. Saavik. The odds will be even."

3. The Rock
Here's a shocker... it's a fucking Michael Bay movie! But ya know what, that doesn't matter, because Michael Bay managed to actually combine his great action sensibilities with superb storytelling. Everything here is outrageous and explosiony and exciting, but without going so far over the top that it becomes incredibly retarded and irritating, e.g. Armageddon, Bad Boys 2. This is, in my opinion, the perfect modern day action flick. Navy Seals, U.S. Marines, jet fighters, a deadly nerve toxin, Sean Connery being a bad ass, Nicholas Cage being crazy fucking Nicholas Cage and allowing us to laugh at him... it has it all. It's sad that all of Bay's films after this have failed to live up to the promise that The Rock showed us. Perhaps he was just more hungry and determined back then, who knows. But even if Transformers 2 and 3 turn out to be turds on the order of the Star Wars prequels, I'll still remember him as the director of this great action flick.

4. Aliens
So many franchises we have today owe their success to Aliens. The Zerg from Starcraft? Aliens. The Tyranids from Warhammer 40k? Aliens. The bugs from Starship Troopers the film (not the book)? Aliens. The Brood from X-Men? Aliens. The Flood from Halo? Aliens. Probably a few others I've missed? Aliens. James Cameron took Ridley Scott's spookhouse in space and completely changed gears to deliver the ultimate scifi war film. Do smartguns on steadycam mounts make a ton of logical sense? Maybe not, but they looked damn cool. So much of what James Cameron designed was incredibly cool and has influenced pop culture. The Pelicans from Halo? Just copies of the Dropship from Aliens. The dropship pilot telling us we're in the pipe five by five? A direct line from Aliens. Angry black sargeant? That's just Apone. Shotgun being good in Doom? Probably Hick's, for close encounters.

The greatness of Aliens, apart from its many cool little tidbits, is the pacing. It's relentless. You're on this sorta roller coaster ride, but it's not quite fun. It's tense, scary, completely draining. And when you think you've managed to escape the worst of it... the Queen pops out of the rear landing gear and you're right back in the thick of it, witnessing an epic fight with a goddamn power loader. This film is great because it dialed absolutely everything up to 11. Looking back, it's easy to see that Alien 3 would've been somewhat of a disappointment no matter what they chose to do. Aliens said pretty much everything that needed to be said about humans in space battling xenomorphs. Game over man, game over.

5. Superman
Yes, another superhero film. This one also has a special place in my heart. Christopher Reeve set the mold for all other actors portraying superheroes. And nobody since has managed to break it. To me, Reeve *is* the Man of Steel. I don't care if the special effects are dated these days. This film's greatness transcends that. After all, Superman Returns had state of the art special effects and yet was a complete failure of a film. Christopher Reeve was able to make me believe a man could fly.

Also, Superman is one of those magical movies that really lodged itself in my mind because it's one of those films that, because of its length, I could never actually finish watching as a kid. Ya know, it's one of those films that you'll catch on tv, or see at a day care center somewhere in Reno, and yet something will always come up which prevents you from getting the ending. Either you'll just fall asleep, or you'll get picked up from the daycare center... just events unfold which prevent a full viewing. For me, it was this film and Back to the Future 2 that always seemed to last forever and I'd never finish till the end. That gave them a sort of mystique in my childhood.

Now, there is one weakness of Superman, and that's the ending. Superman turns the world backwards in time to save Lois and stop California from falling into the ocean. Yes, it's not great... it doesn't really make any sense. But it's one small blemish on an otherwise grand superhero origin story. And honestly, how could you resist the very end when Christopher Reeve flies over the earth at the onset of a new dawn, looks up at us, and smiles in the way that Superman would smile? It's just movie magic, folks.

What makes Superman work is Richard Donner's verisimilitude, especially during the Krypton and Smallville scenes. This movie was the first to tell the superhero origin story, and is still the best one, in my opinion. The shots of the crystalline Kryptonian landscape are awe inspiring. You really believe this is an alien world with an alien people. Smallville looked like the town that Norman Rockwell grew up in. Sure, it doesn't actually exist in real life, but it looks like how we would all want a small American town to look. Who wouldn't want to grow up in a pastural idyllic setting like that? Who could possibly doubt that America's greatest hero would emerge from such a place? When the camera raised and zoomed ahead of Clark and Martha Kent, embracing in a rich field of golden wheat, it was the film was letting us know we had just witnessed the birth of a modern American myth.

And of course, the soundtrack. Who the hell doesn't know the Superman soundtrack? I haven't talked about the soundtrack of any other film on this list, and it's for good reason. None of them matter compared to John Williams' work here. Truly a masterpiece of scoring, and probably his greatest work to date. The notes simply cry out "Superman" even though there aren't any lyrics. Just as Aliens worked to pummel you with dread and suspense, the Superman music worked to uplift the spirit and allow the audience to soar like the Man of Steel himself.

Watching Babylon 5: 2x5 - The Long Dark

Well fuck me... it's Lt. Reginald Barclay going all crazy here. Probably suffering from holo-addiction again, hehe.

Isn't it strange how all blankets in the future look like they're made out of tin foil? Or a car sunshade, I guess? That's gotta be damn uncomfortable. Star Trek TNG had the same exact blankets.

Asian security guard: "Damn lurkers... we oughta space all of em!" <-this right here is possibly the worst line reading I've ever heard.

Wait wait... this guard... he just said he "missed" the war? How the fuck do you miss a war when it's aliens trying to annihilate humanity? That doesn't seem like the sort of draft you can dodge. And Garibaldi's about the same age as he is, near as I can tell.

Ah jeez... the Doctor's already hooking up with that woman? After she just found out her husband's dead? That's pretty messed up. With her being in stasis for over a hundred years, it's gotta be drier then the Sahara down there...

Wow... the final showdown with the beast. I think I'm gonna lay off the CGI of the actual thing, since it's not good, but not mindnumbingly bad. Just gotta accept it, I guess. But... uh, the muzzle flash of their advanced scifi guns, that was really poorly done. There's no other way to describe that CGI. It looked like they just cut out the muzzle flashes from guns in comic books and pasted them into the scene. No idea why they didn't just use actual guns with actual muzzle flash. That would've worked out fine.

Oh snap, it was heading for Za Ha Doom. That means the invisible killer must've been some sort of disembodied Shadow. Nice continuity thread.

Watching Babylon 5: 2x4 - A Distant Star

My impressions of the fourth episode of the second season:

Ya know, Garibaldi seems like such a nice affable guy. It's hard to believe he eventually turns into a bad egg. Wait... is it bad egg or bad apple? I think I meant to say bad apple. It's either bad apple or rotten egg, right? That sounds better.

Overall, no complaints about this episode. It was actually pretty good. I just thought everything pretty much worked. The friendship between Sheridan and the other captain seemed natural enough and not forced, we got some action (finally) with the Starfury rescue in hyperjump/hyperspace/subspace/Idon'tknowwhattheycallitinthisshow, and the humor with the main characters going on the food plan(diet) was pretty good, unlike the Drazi scenes from the other episode which I really did *not* like.

It's funny, the scene where Garibaldi was smuggling in ingredients for his traditional Italian dish really kinda reminded me of a SeaQuest DSV episode where a crewmember was smuggling in real beef for a hamburger, since meat had been outlawed in the future. But instead of getting caught and having the meal thrown out like in that show, it actually ended with him making the dish and sharing it with the Doctor in this really sorta... cozy and humorous scene.

And Delenn had some really poetic words about the universe at the end. Kinda fortune cookie-esque, but what can ya do... wise aliens always say stuff like that.

Only real flaws were the terrible acting from the panicked bridge crew on the Cortez, and the comm officer who had this really heavy Chinese accent for some reason. And uh, the CGI for the Cortez was pretty terrible, the texturing and geometry looked like something made in DoGA. I'd be really curious to see what Babylon 5 would look like if they'd used real models instead of CGI, like TNG and the first half of DS9.

Oh wow, I just found out D.C. Fontana wrote the 4th episode. That makes a lot of sense now.

Watching Babylon 5: 2x3 - The Geometry of Shadows

My impressions of the third episode of the second season:

A big WTF. Just WTF were you thinking, JMS? I am completely amazed at this episode. No, not because Kang was a techno mage. Yes, a techno mage, these things apparently exist. Not like the dude Teknoman from the UPN cartoon. A techno mage, sorta like a ripoff of a ComStar adept I guess? Whatever, that was fine...

What was not fine was the terrible CGI they used to create this.. big ogre-like creature in the techno mage's dwelling. That was uh, pretty fucking awful. I dunno why they didn't just keep it shrouded in the shadows, that would've given us an impression of a big threatening hulk instead of showing us this really poor CGI creation that looked like something from Poser. A really early edition of Poser.

The real meat of this episode was the Drazi. The motherfucking Drazi with their idiotic green and purple ribbons. This is what we're supposed to be entertained by? Fucking Drazi fighting over two colors? Wow... way to treat your audience like children, JMS. This is humor that 6 year olds might find funny in a cartoon show. But... from what I've read, Babylon 5 is supposed to be some sort of deep, adult drama that happens to be set in a scifi universe? Did I get that right? From the man himself:

"Once I had the locale, I began to populate it with characters, and sketch out directions that might be interesting. I dragged out my notes on religion, philosophy, history, sociology, psychology, science (the ones that didn't make my head explode), and started stitching together a crazy quilt pattern that eventually formed a picture."

Really? So this gritty adult take on the human condition, cobbled together with your ponderings on weighty issues like religion, philosophy, sociology, and science... it's to give us scenes of idiot Drazi killing each other because of green or purple ribbons? Wow dude... just wow. I dunno what you're smoking, but it's something awful strong. This... this is just mindboggling. Why, why would you sabotage your own apparent magnum opus with this childish bullshit? Why subject us, the viewers, to this imbecilic display of vapid nonsense? Please... for the love of God, don't write anymore episodes like this. Drama is good, science and politics are good... aliens who wage war for colors and then follow the person who snatches a leader ribbon from the leader... that's fucking horrible and awful and BAD.

BTW, did anyone notice if those crutches Ivanova used were standard medical crutches, or were they made to look like futuristic scifi crutches?

Friday, April 24, 2009

ExoSquad: Memorable Quotation of the Day

Episode 1x13 - Defying Olympus

JT Marsh: "Goodbye... and thanks."
ExoFrame: "Farewell, Operator JT Marsh."
JT Marsh: "What...? It talked to me. I wasn't plugged in but... it talked to me."
Marsala: "Humans are great creators Lieutenant, though often unaware of the consequences of their gift."

Marsala: "It is finished, JT. We have miscalculated. We have only minutes until Olympus Mons is destroyed. We have won the battle, but for us the war is over. It is a little thing we lose, compared with the stars."

Tuesday, April 21, 2009

ExoSquad: Memorable Quotation of the Day

Episode 1x4 - Blitzkrieg

"Since its conception, the Neosapien race has lived under the oppressive rule of a homo sapien regime. Forced to work and serve as slave labor, only to benefit Terran objectives. Today marks the beginning of a new and enlightened era and the history of your kind comes to an end. The future now belongs to Neosapiens. You as the representatives of the Terran Homeworlds must accept this reality. Your unconditional surrender to us, to me, is now a fact.
History will record the inevitability of your decision. Any form of human resistance will be met with immediate extermination. The tables have turned and now you, Terrans, will serve the Neosapien Commonwealth. And I, Phaeton, am now your leader. I now hereby declare this assembly dissolved, as your services are no longer required." -Phaeton

Monday, April 20, 2009

ExoSquad: Memorable Quotation of the Day

Episode 1x12 - Betrayal

"Been through? Been through?! You Terrans have never seen your brood mates sold, beaten, mistreated, treated as cattle and worse. Created as slaves, but with a will to be free. Forced to work, to suffer, to die in horrible conditions for Terran greed. Denied even the right to speak up against such tyranny. This is what I've been through. Speak not to me of loyalty. I am a Neo sapien. Created by Terrans, feared by Terrans, abused by Terrans, but no more! My place is with Phaeton, and yours is in extinction." -Marsala

PC Games and Bugs

Were any of the earlier Total War games buggy? Cause Empire Total War seems to be really really buggy, apparently their forum's been in quite an uproar over all the stability and AI issues. Creative Assembly did get bought by Sega. Perhaps that's had something to do with the recent drop in quality and polish. I just think it's pretty awful that the game got reviews of 9s and 9.5s when there were these stability issues. Just one more reason game reviews are increasingly irrelevant.

I don't really accept that because it's a pc game rather then a console game, we the consumers should put up with buggy releases. It's just not right. And sure, older games used to need patching too, but there's a huge difference from patching in a weird wall texture or a minor AI bug, to games just crashing at startup, or crashing to desktop once an hour.

And I do think a game can be profitably finished. People are much more likely to buy a game that they know is stable and will run well then one that's unoptimized and prone to crashing. See, that's part of the reason why so many people pirate games nowadays. Part of it's because it's simply not fun to buy a 50 dollar disc that doesn't run well, and no game store these days let's you return an opened game.

The whole reason PC games are so buggy compared to consoles is because of the plethora of hardware combinations. Well, I think the hardware people need to talk to the software people... form some sort of alliance, get some sort of standardization going. They both need each other. Nvidia and ATI create cards because of gamers playing new games. Game developers can't create new games without the better hardware. They depend on each other and they need to fucking get their shit together or PC gaming's just going to die.

I think a big part of the problem is that now games are a big business and the head honchos want to pump out at least one title every year to appease the shareholders. Whereas back in the old days, games were still a pretty small market and we were used to waiting a few years for a particular game to get developed.

Really, I wonder how long FreeSpace 2's development cycle was. Cause if ever there was a game that was perfectly polished and stable on launch, that's the one I'd point to. It got one patch, but I think that was just correcting some minor multiplayer issues.

Thoughts on the DCAU

Superman TAS was so goddamn weak. Like, there was this one episode where a helicopter with a minigun gave him a lot of trouble. Absolutely retarded.

You know, I wasn't crazy about JLU, mostly because they totally butchered Hawkman, but I always wanted to see them do "Identity Crisis." That sort of story would've been perfect for that format.

Season 4 of Batman TAS sucked ass. All the art looked worse then before because Bruce Timm decided to simplify the animation style, and Batman went from being a grim badass to just being an insufferable jackass. Avoid it like the plague.

Doomsday in the DCAU is not Doomsday. Doomsday in the comics killed Superman. Doomsday in the DCAU got fucking lobotomized by Serious Superman. Lawl. Utter fail.

Unless Serious Superman from the parallel dimension took the equivalent of Kryptonian steroids or something, there's no way that he could use just his heat vision to lobotomize something like Doomsday. It's moronic.

And no, I don't particularly care about Doomsday, but they royally fucked him up in that episode. Dini and co have a pretty good batting average with their body of work, and some ideas are certainly better then what the comics had (Heart of Ice, etc) but they lay some stinkers too. I'm more then happy to point them out.

In fact, the entire Justice Lords story was ridiculous. I mean, I like Wally West as much as the next guy, but his death causes the entire JLA to turn into a bunch of fascist super-dictators? Really? Cmon, you couldn't even convince most of fandom that the destruction of an entire city on some coast would turn a hero into a villain, the death of a Flash ain't gonna do it.

Demigod and PC Piracy

So yea... apparently Gas Powered Games and Stardock released a game without any DRM at all called Demigod. Unfortunately, it was pirated quite extensively and a quirk in the game's multiplayer mechanic led to all the pirated copies flooding the Stardock servers, leading to a release week with a game being virtually unplayable online. They've since patched it and fixed the issues, but obviously this is a pretty huge blow for Stardock, which has a good policy of not using any DRM on their games.

I think there are several problems with PC games and piracy right now. Not gonna go into the whole issue of torrents and the availability of warez since that's quite obvious...

First of all, many games now don't release demos beforehand for their games. That's just shooting yourself in the foot, as far as I'm concerned. With the rather draconian return policies for PC games nowadays, you can't really return anything that's been opened. Demos are needed for people to find out if their computer can run the damn thing. And of course, they're also great for helping gamers decide if the product itself is worth buying. 50 bucks is a lot to just spend on a gut feeling. If demos aren't available and people are stuck on the fence about a game, it's easy to be tempted by piracy.

GPG and Stardock had a pretty high hill to climb in order to sell this game to the consumers. First, they had to convince all the DotA fans if this 40 dollar commercial product was a worthy successor to their free Warcraft 3 mod. That's not gonna be easy. Then they had to convince all the other gamers who had never even heard of DotA that this was a fun experience. People don't just spend 40 dollars on a new IP based on some weird Warcraft 3 mod, with cover art that looks like some sort of Supreme Commander clone. They're gonna save their money, especially in this economy, for something familiar and reliable, something they know will be quality. That's gonna be something by either Blizzard, or Valve, or Relic. Not something quirky and new. They needed a demo, at the very least.

Now, the fact that it's a primarily multiplayer game should've led to higher sales. Games with multiplayer are inevitably seen as a better value and more gamers are willing to pay for a game that contains a good singleplayer component as well as multiplayer. You get more mileage for your buck, it's as simple as that. Whereas with some games that just contain a 6-8 hour singleplayer campaign with little replay value, it's harder to justify a 50 dollar purchase. That's about 7 dollars per hour. Prince of Persia and Mirror's Edge come to mind as examples. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed both of those titles a lot as well-crafted experiences, but they were clearly a lot shorter then something like Dawn of War 2, which can last you about 15 hours for singleplayer and a few months or even years in multiplayer. I think in the future, there should probably be more of a variable pricing scheme for publishers. 30-40 dollars or so for games with quick singleplayer experiences, while the big titles with multiplayer like Call of Duty and so on go with 60 dollar price points. I mean, can you imagine how many more people would've actually given PoP and Mirror's Edge a try if they were priced at 30 dollars rather then the actual 50? Those were great innovative titles, but again the short playtime just didn't make it worthwhile for most.

Sunday, April 19, 2009

Watching Babylon 5: 2x2 - Revelations

Holy God, the cocoon's leaking some nasty liquid. Now I'm posivitely certain the Minbari aren't gonna get their security deposit back, that is just unsanitary...

Londo doesn't seem to like G'Kar's people. There seems to be shenanigans afoot. Ya know, it kinda reminds me of a similar relationship, between the Cardassians and the Bajorans. That was another show that took place aboard a space station. Fancy that, what a coincidence.

And the actor who plays Morden... he's really really good at being smug. Smugness, it must've been one of the qualities listed on his resume. It's sort of a smarmy smugness. Smug mixed with smarmness? Anyways, he's amazing at it.

Wow, Delenn's now a cross between Palpatine and the Elephant Man. And gained the rare skin condition of Killer Croc. That's not an attractive feature.

Hmmmm, transferring one's life-force energy to another? How the hell do these actors keep a straight face while delivering these lines? I certainly can't, I've just been laughing along.

Wow, they sure like keeping a close up shot on Garibaldi's nostrils.

Fuck, I can't believe half of this episode is about Sheridan talking to his goddamn sister, who's played by this terribly wooden actress. And what do they talk about? His dead wife. This is exhilarating stuff, guys. Keep up the good work!

This actress playing the sister truly is horrible though. Not all that attractive either. This episode is the pits so far.

Is that a nicotrol patch on Sheridan's hand?

"I just didn't want her to go without telling her I loved her... one last time." Wow... could you be anymore cliched? Who wrote this fucking dialogue?

Wow Doctor, haven't you ever heard you're not supposed to pick at scabs? Delenn really needs some moisturizer... in a 5 gallon container. What are you? Well, right now you're pretty butt ugly, that's what you are. But don't worry, I'm sure there's some sort of parable about an ugly duckling that's lurking around somewhere in this script.

Why that wacky Londo, so sneaky and treacherous. Of course it's a good idea to tell Morden about the ship going to Za Ha Doom, it's not like Morden works for the Shadows or anything. And G'Kar... what a trusting guy to inform Londo. You seriously didn't have to tell him the exact time the scout ship was jumping in, that's just stupid.

Woot, it's that hot CNN anchorwoman, only here she's some psychic.

Wow, that was actually a nice scene. Found out about the unknown assassin and caught him with the hijinks of Butterfly Delenn.

Hmmmm... President Clark just happens to want the suspected assassin and all the evidence turned over to him at once. This isn't suspicious in the least.

"It's a trap!" Wow, those Shivan lasers are pretty powerful. Or the Narn ship is really fucking weak.

Jeez, Delenn... could you be anymore dramatic? Who walks around with a hood completely covering their face? What, did she just walk to the council chamber by looking at the floor?

So she has hair now? Really? That's the big transformation? Some hair on her head? Someone should've just gotten her a membership to The Hair Club for Men, and saved the whole being-inside-an-icky-cocoon.

Huh. Apparently... Sheridan's wife was Tasha Yar's sister. Small world. And uh, what's with the poor quality of Babylon 5's monitors? They're all fuzzy and the color looks bad.

Watching Babylon 5: 2x1 - Points of Departure

Well, started watching the second season of Babylon 5. Friend of mine said it was really good, so I said whatever, I'll give it a try. Started with the first episode "Points of Departure." That was the name of a custom FreeSpace 2 mission, now that I think about it. Pretty good one too, full of dogfights. Hopefully this isn't too bad.

Great... I start watching Season 2 and already Delenn's in a weird-looking cocoon. I wonder if you lose the security deposit on your apartment if you construct a cocoon inside?

The CGI's just how I remembered it, shit-tastic.

That's kinda humiliating... winning a war because the other side surrendered, even though they won every battle.

So... his brilliant strategy that led to the only victory in the war was... a minefield? Really? Wow. Do they call it the Sheridan Maneuver? It's just so innovative and daring. *rolls eyes*

So the Minbari are way ahead of the humans in technology, but their sensors can't detect a minefield? I think I'm trying pretty hard to like this show. But when something like that comes out, it's hard to suspend one's disbelief.

I would suspect that a race advanced enough to possess interstellar travel would have some sort of sensors to detect crude human fusion mines. Specially since they have a lot of other nifty tech like stealth fields.

And of course, it's not just that. If all you need to do is lay some minefields, why was this the only time a Minbari ship suffered a defeat? What were all the other earth ships doing during the way? Was the Lexington the only one that had fusion mines? Considering this is the single human victory in a war of total extermination, the actual Sheridan Maneuver is just wholly underwhelming.

Oh God, the CGI of that restaurant is fucking terrible. What the hell were they smoking when they came up with that?

It ends with him reading that boring speech in front of nobody? Fuck. Facepalm x100.

ExoSquad: Analyzing Season 2

Now, I just want to talk about Season 2 for a bit. If you watch it, you'll obviously notice that it isn't quite as good as Season 1. Season 1 was what hooked me into the show, and you can easily tell why... it's incredibly well written and plotted for all 13 episodes and the animation was quite good for that time. There's not a stinker in the group, they're all really enjoyable.

For season 2, the show was gaining popularity and they decided on a much more ambitious 39 episode run. This was triple the number of the original season and probably placed a great deal more pressure on the writers. Like I said, some of the episodes are quite good and the equal of those from the first season, but you can see that a lot of them were just filler and that they were trying to stretch the whole war out to accommodate this larger run. The entry of the Neo-Warriors and the later Neo-Lords can be seen as the point where they may have started to jump the shark, as well as the appearance of the kid-friendly Exo-Scouts. The Neo-Warriors and Neo-Lords were a pretty extreme example of Villain Decay, as they were introduced as invincible new soldiers for Phaeton, only to be mowed down by the Jump Troopers by the end of the season.

The part of the show that took the biggest hit in quality by far was the animation. You really get a sense by watching that they probably contracted out a lot more Korean animation studios to handle the increased workload and that many of these studios were probably far shabbier then the few used for the first season. There are some extreme differences in animation style and the consistency between episodes suffers greatly. For example, you might see a shuttle change designs from one episode to the next. In another, Maggie Weston's Exo-Frame will have an open cockpit requiring her to wear a helmet, when every other episode has shown her cockpit to be enclosed. This sort of thing does get noticeable, but if you've fallen in love with the show from the first season like me, this decline in animation quality will be tolerated just because you're eager for more episodes of ExoSquad.

It's nice to wonder about what would've happened if they'd been a bit more prudent and gone for a smaller episode run for season two. The quality of the writing and animation may have gone up to match that of season one. However, the possibility exists that the show would've still been canceled at the end of season two, in which case we would be left hanging without the conclusion of the entire war. Given that this was a kid's cartoon that managed to deal with war, slavery, prejudice, betrayal, honor, and duty... the fact that it accrued 52 episodes is pretty damn impressive. Ultimately, the show ended with a wholly satisfying end to the Second Neo-Sapien War, and that's much more then you can say for another scifi show, Space Above and Beyond.

ExoSquad: Memorable Quotation of the Day

Episode 1x4 - Blitzkrieg

"The birth of the Neosapien order is a thing of beauty. It would be unthinkable to not witness the most important event in history...the moment the Neosapiens seize their destiny. The reign of the old humanity ends this day. We, the stepchildren of mankind, are now its rulers. Think, Typhonus, what the rule of the Neosapiens means. Justice, at last. Logic, at last. Order, at last. Our laws will prevail. What glories the Homeworlds will see, governed by our even hand!" - Phaeton

Friday, April 17, 2009

ExoSquad Season 2 Highlights

Even though Season 2 suffers from a bit of a sophomore slump after the incredibly well paced Season 1, there are still some outstanding episodes that I love.

2x11 The First Step: A somewhat new take on the old fighter ace duel. Thrax gets the best lines out of all the Neo Sapiens, besides Phaeton.

2x17 Under the Skin: This episode was just heartbreaking. They take an obscure extra from the first season who was KIA and actually make us care about her. It really changes how we look at that photo JT always keeps in his cockpit.

2x31 The Price of Courage: The Battle of the Bulge of ExoSquad, as far as I can tell. Shiva goes from being a villainous enemy general to an actual warrior who goes down fighting even though he knows it's futile. Downer of an ending.

2x34 One Small Step: The episode where someone dies.

2x38 Abandon Hope: The penultimate episode of Season 2, but pretty much the finale as far as I'm concerned, because it completely wraps up the Neo Sapien War. The last shot really sums it all up.

As a kid I missed the episode of Under the Skin and always just sorta assumed that photo JT had was of his wife or girlfriend. But after watching that episode, it's just so much more meaningful whenever you see it on his windshield. If it had been just a photo of his wife, it would've been completely ordinary and a throwaway detail. But him choosing to remind himself of the loss of Alice Noretti, someone he didn't even know all that well... just tells you what kind of a man he is.

Thursday, April 16, 2009

ExoSquad + Space Above and Beyond = Happy Day for Me!

eJust received the first season of ExoSquad on DVD and boy oh boy, this brings back so many fond memories. The show really holds up well, except for a few slight elements.

The greatest sci-fi war epic of all time, in saturday morning cartoon format. ExoSquad was not a funny series of hijinks and misunderstandings. Nor a treasure trove of pop culture references randomly inserted throughout. It was simply a dramatic and at times brutal account of the Second Neo Sapien War. For a saturday morning cartoon, this show took risks. Characters you'd grown to know and love could and would die. Entire populations were brought to starvation and slavery in concentration camps. And the most frightening aspect of all... mankind had pretty much brought this on itself. We were responsible for creating our own conquerors, the genetically engineered Neo Sapiens. Slaves who were now our slavemasters.

The show basically took World War II and transported it into the 22nd century, with sci-fi exoskeletons known as Exo-Frames. Basically, all the cool aspects of Starship Troopers, but with a much more relatable conflict. Instead of just blowing away anonymous bugs, we were fighting our own bitter creations, who were politically ruled by a megalomaniacal tyrant named Phaeton. I'll never forget the first season episode "The Brood" in which the ExoFleet, returning to Earth to liberate it from the occupying Neo Sapiens, ended up being overwhelmed by two Neo Sapien fleets. The flagship Resolute going down in flames as its lifeboats shot out and were blown apart by hostile fire is probably one of the most traumatic images of my childhood. Sure, I'd seen the Reliant get blown apart by the Enterprise in "Wrath of Khan" before then, but that was a ship full of escaped criminals and villains. They were trash. Seeing the Resolute, flagship of the entire Exofleet, the pride and joy of Admiral Winfield, slowly get ripped apart by laser fire and then explode with the traitorous Captain Marcus aboard invoked a curious mixture of horror, despair, and wonderment.

Now that I've grown up, I actually find that I can appreciate the series more, which is rarely the case with these saturday morning cartoons. But it's only now in my adult life that I find myself recognizing the subtle touches of the writers, like the state of the Neo Sapien people in the first few episodes resembling the state of Germany before World War 2. Or the problem of human collaborators working with the Neo Sapien occupation, just like the Vichy regime of France.

Here's a quote that I've found especially memorable. Only a mere taste of the excellence embued in this animated masterpiece.

Thrax: "I used to worry how I would face the end. Would I go bravely like a soldier? But let me tell you something, Neo Mega, it's life itself that matters, not how it ends. Each moment is a precious gift, if only we have the courage to accept it. That is where our duty lies, not in taking life, but in living it."


You can find the entire series on Hulu to watch.

BTW, I also picked up the Space Above and Beyond DVD set along with this, and I've gotta tell ya... Fox can go eat a dick. It's fucking awful. No extras, and double-sided discs. Who the fuck still thinks double-sided discs are a good idea? Still a great show, but the DVD treatment is some kind of Special Olympics.

Monday, April 13, 2009

Nostalgia: Another Catchy 80s Show Intro



Evie was fucking hoooooot back in the day. Of course, being a child actress, she's probably either overweight or dead from an O.D. now.

Now, I was always confused... was that really Evie's father inside the glowy alien crystal thingy, or was it just a communication device? And if so, where the hell was Alien Burt Reynolds? Goddamn deadbeat...

Sunday, April 12, 2009

Saavik: Hottest babe in a scifi film? I say yes.

Kirstie Alley was the perfect Saavik. Then she *had* to let success to get to her head and ask for a bigger paycheck. I was rewatching ST2 today and it just occurred to me that Saavik actually was the only Vulcan female in the history of Star Trek to have a decent hairstyle. Robin Curtis had this really horrible do that kinda looked like a mullet. Valeris was just like every other Vulcan female, rocking that horrible bowl cut thing that Vulcans and Romulans love. Only it always looks awful. I dunno, I always had a serious crush on Saavik when I watched ST2 as a kid. Alley was really great at portraying a half-Vulcan/half-Romulan hybrid. Robin Curtis just acted really wooden, which isn't the same as acting Vulcan.

Do you think it should've been Saavik instead of Valeris in Undiscovered Country? I'm totally with Meyer on that. It would've been a great callback to TWOK. The only thing is, I would've wanted Kirstie Alley to do it. And she probably wouldn't, since she was so famous as Rebecca Howe over on Cheers. Meaning an even larger salary demand. Really really would not have wanted Kim Cattrall to play Saavik. That would've been awful.

Am I being too hard on Robin Curtis? Did you like her? She's probably a nice person in real life, but she butchered Saavik beyond recognition. Let's put it this way. At the end of Star Trek 2, you felt like Saavik was a part of the crew, as much as Chekov or Sulu. That's pretty impressive. She's standing right there with them at Spock's funeral. And I felt like she deserved to be there, she'd earned her place at the table. With all that she'd done at the conn throughout the film, I thought she was a pretty great character and definitely more then just a glorified extra. As opposed to, say... Wedge Antilles, a guy who has maybe two lines of dialogue in a film and then goes on to have about 15-20 novels devoted to his life for some reason. I'm not saying that Saavik's the main reason, but people consider TWOK to be the best, and I'd venture to say that Alley's portrayal of that character is one of many factors that lift that film above the others.

Saturday, April 11, 2009

Quick Time Events can go to hell.

If puns are the lowest form of humor, then Quick Time Events are the lowest form of gameplay. Seriously, who thought these would ever be a good idea? Pushing a button that flashes on screen at a certain point to watch a scripted cinematic? What is this bullshit? That's barely gameplay. Barely. The barest form.

When I want to play a PC game, I want to interact with the game more then simply pushing down a button when I'm given the fucking cue. That's just fucking Simon Says. If I want to play Simon Says, I'll go out and buy one of those lame ass pads with the four colored buttons on it that you set down on a coffee table and invite the whole family to play, like in one of those ridiculous commercials. I do not want that experience when playing a computer game. There is nothing fun about pressing a button every once in a while. If you're gonna show a cinematic, just fucking show it, without a giant red button in the center ruining it.

Gamers can handle cinematic gameplay, they really can. And it's been pulled off in lots of great ways without QTEs. Just look at Half-Life... very cinematic, very immersive. Or something like Knights of the Old Republic. Great gameplay and storytelling merged together. No fucking QTEs to be seen. It's possible, game developers. You just need to stop being lazy and actually work a little. Quick Time Events are inane, unsatisfying, and completely shallow. No. More. Fucking. Button. Cues.

All you need to know about Star Trek TNG


Quite shitty.



Very respectable.

Thursday, April 9, 2009

Complete DoW 2 patch notes released

1.2.1 Patch Notes

AG Warrior nerf: Oh wow, Tyranids are definitely gonna be feeling this one. 52 to 40 is a huge 24% reduction.

Energy shield nerf: About what I expected. 4 to 1 efficiency ratio is still a potent defense. And the 8 second toggle cooldown means people aren't going to be microing the shields on and off in an inane manner.

Falcon regen nerf: Perfectly appropriate nerf. You can argue that the Eldar race in general is UP, and I wouldn't argue with you, but the T3 Falcon spam was getting pretty lame. Something's wrong when your T2 transport is invincible compared to your T3 main battle tank.

Ripper nerf: Still too durable.

Zoan nerf: Uh... 3 seconds? That's... sort of a nerf I guess. Kinda.

Guardian equipment nerf: Not sure why this was needed. Guardians using grenades didn't strike me as OP.

Carnifex cost increased: 50 more req and 10 more power... meh. Was hoping for more, but I suppose the AG warrior nerf will work to magnify the significance of this change.

Tac sarge nerf: Oooooouch. 50 to 28... almost a 50% reduction in damage. I suppose it's a nice push to grab ASMs.

ATSKNF nerf: Reduced to 40% damage... alright. Knockback's unaffected, so it still serves its purpose. Again, just an incentive to invest in ASMs.

Spore Mines nerf: Awesome.

Warp Spider DPS buff: Pretty great, it's a 50% increase. Hope that's enough. If not, try try again.

Tuesday, April 7, 2009

Star Trek II The Wrath of Khan: Still holds up damn fine.

So, with all the buzz with the first Star Trek reviews pouring out, I figured I'd go and rewatch Star Trek 2 The Wrath of Khan. Ya know, just to revisit a classic. It's one of my favorite films of all time, so this rewatching business... something I do pretty often.

You have to know, Star Trek 2 was one of the first films I remember watching as a young lad. Back in the good ol days, channel 44, which would later go on to become UPN and then the CW, would rerun old movies all the time, and one of those would be Star Trek 2. This was my very first Star Trek film, and left an absolutely indelible impression on me. This film was what made me a Trekkie. It was pretty cool too, cause this was right around the time that TNG was starting up and I was able to watch that great show as it originally ran.

Then my family bought a VCR player and I recorded Star Trek 2. And rewatched it and rewatched it and rewatched it. Fuck all other films, I couldn't get sick of viewing this somewhat poor quality recording. It got to the point where I could pretty much recite the dialogue line for line as they said it onscreen. Ya know how it is, being a young kid and going all crazy trying to ape Ricardo Montalban with fun lines like "To the last... I will grapple with thee. From Hell's heart... I stab at thee! For HATE's SAKE... I spit... my last breath... at thee!" Just wonderful emotional lines that you could really rasp out. Of course, some of the dialogue made absolutely no sense back then. It took me years to figure out exactly what "Sauce for the goose" meant, for example. Still, great childhood memories.

So, that's just a bit of context to let you know how much I cherish this film. The best Star Trek film ever, and my favorite film until The Dark Knight last summer. What Nicholas Meyer pulled off was nothing short of a miracle, when you look back and see that it was following up on Star Trek The Motionless Picture. Who could have had the imagination, and force of persuasion to alter basically the entire Star Trek universe like that? Suddenly... awful pajama uniforms gave way to awesomely elegant red jacket uniforms. With that iconic clasp over the right shoulder? That feature's been copied for fucking decades now, in all kinds of scifi movies and video games. You've gotta give props, that was an amazing costume change. And the single best starship battle, STILL. You can show me all sorts of ship battles from DS9 or Nemesis, but I still hold that Mutara Nebula battle as the greatest ship to ship battle in Trek history. You cannot top that film finale. Which is strange, because it's two Federation starships battling one another.

Then you realize that's what made it great. What was great was how they made it two Federation starships fighting each other. It seems like that would be a weird dynamic, but they make it work. The Reliant is from Starfleet, but it looks totally different from the Enterprise. And I'm not just talking about the red lighting they used, which was blatant as all hell. It's got two low nacelles right under it, far apart, so it kinda looks like a mean pitbull. A pitbull in somewhat of a lean, crouched down posture. Small, but packing a punch. While the Enterprise is longer and much more graceful with two nacelle struts in a V, like an eagle. This really hits home when the Enterprise is cruising towards the Mutara Nebula with the Reliant hot on its heels.

The final battle is tense, just like the u-boat films which Nicholas Meyer referenced on his commentary of the DVD. But what's so important is how slow the ships move. This is what is great about Trek, they are these giant ships and they act like it. When the Reliant comes charging out of the static towards the Enterprise, we can see Kirk pivoting his chair, while ordering "Evasive starboard!" Yet the ship herself turns much more slowly then his chair pivot. We feel the engines straining for such a maneuver. Is it realistic? Oh hell no, of course not. Ships are weightless in space, yada yada yada. But it doesn't matter, because Trek ships need that sense of size and weight. After all, this is space... they have nothing but the Enterprise and an occasional alien planet. This ship is the workplace, and home, and overall landscape for 500 people. She's as much a character as any of the main characters. So to maintain the heft and importance, it is crucial that the ship not be pulling off all sorts of crazy loop-de-loops or whatnot.

So yea, Wrath of Khan still holds up. That's why it's a classic. I will always have a big goofy grin on my face while watching this film. Just can't help it. And yes, occasionally reciting a line like "Sauce for the goose, Mr. Saavik. The odds will be even."

Stadium Food

So, I found this list of top 10 Stadium foods

And it got me thinking... stadiums have really really expensive food choices inside. Like, 9 bucks for a small slice of pizza and a coke. That's pretty fucking ridiculous. Highway robbery. Of course, they can charge that because of the convenience. People get hungry while watching a long game of baseball or football. It's only natural to munch on something. Still, they should probably just charge you more for the ticket and have regular normal everyday prices for the concession stands. That would make a lot more sense to me.

Anyways, I was just wondering... do stadiums actually prohibit you from bringing food from outside the stadium? Ya know, so you don't have to buy their overpriced hot dogs and stuff? Will they actually stop you and search your backpack to see if you're carrying in a homemade sandwich? It's been forever since I've gone to any sort of sporting event so I'm clearly in the darkness on this one.

Monday, April 6, 2009

Anime Cliches: Let's dissect Full Metal Panic

Hmmm, alright let's see here... what's this anime about? Let's try to piece it together from what we know. Let's see, there's the name. We know the name. It's called Full Metal Panic... and it's an anime. So, the Full Metal part of the name... implies some sort of metal... metal usage... metallic... mechanized metallic man... giant robot! Okay, probably some sort of giant mecha robot thingy.

And the Panic part of the name... what does the panic mean? Panic because of... some sort of inner turmoil? Panic because of... inner turmoil... at being... an effeminate man? Some sort of androgynous effeminate looking guy. And who tends to panic? Perhaps a female... of... youth? Female youths tend to panic. And... let's see, female youths go to... school. Schoolgirls. Schoolgirls in uniforms.

Alright, I think I've pieced this mystery together.

FUCK ANIME

Time for a Ditty.

The sons of the prophet
Were valiant and bold
And quite unaccustomed to fear
But of all the most reckless
Or so I am told
Was Abdul Abulbul Amir.


There were brave men aplenty
All well known to fame
Who served in the ranks of the Czar …

Sunday, April 5, 2009

Relic: My Favorite Game Developer

Who's Relic? They're the best game developer working today, IMO.

You have to keep in mind, back in the old days I had only dabbled in a bit of C&C red alert and Starcraft as far as RTSs go. They weren't anything special, I was far more involved in FPSs. So then, being a Trekkie... I go and buy Star Trek Armada. Ultimately a fun game, one of the better Star Trek games ever made, but pretty much a disappointment if you expected it to be more then Starcraft with starships. Then Homeworld 2 came out (I missed the boat on HW1), and what a revelation. Completely 3D environment, with no basebuilding, intelligent fleet formations and fighters all swarming around on their own. It was simply incredible. All from a completely new studio, out of the blue.

And the environments they created... were completely breathtaking. Every Relic game has had that unique Relic art direction that utilizes quality concept art to bring the game to life. It's completely unrealistic, but space never looked more beautiful then in HW2. FreeSpace games come close, but staring at some of the backgrounds as your battle-weary ships sail past... it's majestic, breathtaking, elegant, operatic, awe inspiring... like looking at a brilliant sunset in autumn. The grandeur of the cosmos was perfectly captured.

I dunno... it was the first, and still stands as the greatest 3D space RTS ever, as few of those as there are. Sins of a Solar Empire adds more 4X elements, but I can't say it really comes close. Of course, someone did tell me they made Sins with only 9 people and 3 million dollars, which is impressive in itself.

Relic's just a great innovator of RTS games and has been pushing the envelop for years now. That's ultimately what makes them tops in my book. In Dawn of War, they gave us squads of infantry to control, syncronized kill animations, and reinforcements on the fly, retreat mechanics, morale mechanics, as well as terrain cover. Instead of just mining crystals or chopping wood, resources were gathered from strategic requisition points on the map.

With Company of Heroes, they took it even further with directional terrain cover, supply lines, location-based vehicle damage modeling, and machine gun suppression mechanics. In multiplayer, annihilation of the enemy base was replaced with victory point capture mode, which is kinda like Battlefield's tickets concept.

Dawn of War 2 introduced RPG gameplay elements to the single player and bravely took out basebuilding entirely. What we got was a small squad-based tactical game that made you care about your units and preserving them in combat. Plus, they added in the Tyranids, making it superior to DoW 1 by default. Yep, Relic's obviously the most innovative RTS developer out there and I can't wait to see what they've got in store for us next.

Modern games and health recovery

Ya know... it's a bit sad how most games just have regenerating health these days. I do think it streamlines the gameplay, but at the cost of removing a lot of the difficulty.

I think they just really went too far. Cause the original Doom model... just picking up healthkits and using them as you walk over em, is outdated. It doesn't work well enough for today's games. Good players end up not using up health kits because they're already at full health, and then later might require a healthkit but can't get any because the level designer decided not to put any down at that location.

Mulling it over, I think the healthkit-in-inventory system is still probably the best. Like in Jedi Knight, Max Payne, or Deus Ex. You pick up healthkits, store em in your inventory, and use em when you need to. I really liked Max Payne's... he just carried around some painkiller pills. Far Cry 2's was a pretty good implementation too. You get these syringes to inject yourself with, but first you'd have to pry the bullet out and cauterize the wound to stop yourself from bleeding out.

Saturday, April 4, 2009

Looking Back: Act of War

I played this RTS religiously for about a year before I moved on and found out about Dawn of War. Anybody who likes RTSs at all should try this little-known gem from Atari. To put it simply, Act of War is in my opinion the perfect Command and Conquer game. It takes everything that made Command and Conquer great and dials it up to 11. This is strange because Act of War isn't actually an official Command and Conquer game. IMO, Act of War got exactly the right scale of combat. With DoW 2, you have small intimate squad battles. With Supreme Commander, you've got a ginormous scale with epic battles across entire peninsulas. Act of War had the perfect average of scale with good infantry action (even inside buildings!), while also allowing for devastating nuclear strikes and massed tank rushes. They even managed to pull off air combat in an innovative realistic fashion, which Relic later mimicked in CoH. Even Command and Conquer 3 came out later and tried to follow the magic and execution of Act of War, but I think they fell short. About the *only* complaint I can ever make about Act of War is that the infantry are individual units rather then squads, but I played it before DoW so that didn't bother me at the time.

DoW 2: Hormagaunts and melee-synapse: Leap

Am I the only one who thinks melee-synapsed Hormagaunts are way too good? They get frigging leap! That makes them practically impervious to ranged fire. Let me tell you, ranged fire is not very far in this game. Not even a full screen length, at full zoom out. Tactical squads can get maybe 3 or 4 bursts off before hormagaunts close the distance and tie them up. With leap, they can reduce that to about 1 burst. Melee damage in DoW 2 is higher then ranged damage to compensate for the fact that you have to close the distance. That's the entire justification for weaker ranged damage. Leap removes that disadvantage almost completely. Leap allows your 240 requisition unit to completely trump a 500 requisition unit. Not to mention the knockdown it provides. I find leap pretty damn overpowered right now. If ranged units had twice the distance, leap would go from being amazing to merely a good addition. Which is what a synapse bonus should give you, IMO.

My reaction to the upcoming Dawn of War 2 patch notes

The Carnifex cost increase is really nice though I always thought it was the pop that needed adjusting. 18 pop is way too low for a game-changing unit like that. I mean, Terminators take up 24. Does anyone really think Terminators are that much better?

The nerfing of the energy shields was pretty much expected, but got me thinking... the Terminator armor for the Force Commander really deserves some rethinking. A Thunder Hammer and Stormshield weapon option at the very least. Right now, it's completely unviable.

Definitely a nice change to warriors. We'll probably see a shift from full on AG spam to them including a few zooeys. Which is undoubtedly going to shift community focus onto them and their degree of OPness. Right now they're generally untouchable behind a solid wave of AG Warriors. But with the energy shield nerf... who knows. *shrug*

Overall, pretty good. Though the general impression I get with these notes is that tac spam is a more dire balance issue right now then Ravener tunnels. Which I can't really agree with.

Another Dawn of War 2 query

Anyone else find this strange? How come Terminators, Assault Terminators, and FC in Terminator armor aren incapable of retreating? All other infantry units are able to retreat. It makes sense for vehicles to lack a retreat button, but Terminators aren't vehicles. Other powerful infantry like Tier 3 Nobs and the call-in Seer Council are capable of retreating, so why are Terminators deprived of this option? They'd probably have to retreat slower because of their heavier armor, but that's alright. It just seems like an unnecessary disadvantage.

Dawn of War 2 query

Here's a question... what's up with heavy bolter and plasma devastator squads? Is there a reason they only have 675 health when a tactical squad have 1050? I mean, these squads are all just three guys in power armor. The Tact squad doesn't appear to be wearing heavier armor then the devastators. Why would they lose 35% of their health just because one of them swaps out a bolter for a heavy bolter/plasma cannon? Anybody else think this is strange? Do Warriors lost 35% of their health when they gain a barbed strangler or venom cannon? I'm not writing this because I want SM buffs, it's just kind of an odd inconsistency.

Pretty peculiar.

Fuck You Turbine

You know what, I don't agree with newcomers to a forum being harrassed or abused. That's not cool. At the same time, there is a reason that you Turbine fans aren't being given the red carpet treatment and feel unwelcome. I'm gonna go ahead and break it down for you guys so you can at least understand where a lot of the Escapist people are coming from. Mind you, I'm new to the Escapist myself. Joined just to vote for Relic.

Here's the deal with Turbine. Let's say that a film website set up a competition to determine the best film of 2008. Tournament brackets, 64 film choices, the whole thing. Now, this is a film website, catering to serious film fans. And word gets out, different films start receiving fan support. You've got fans of The Dark Knight, Slumdog Millionaire, Wall-E... they're all registering to support their film. And one of the films on the ballot happens to be Twilight. Yes, Twilight. Now we all know about the uh, fan phenomenon of Twilight... they're somewhat insane. Rabid, insane tweens. With their moms. In huge groupings, they can trample and crush anything in their wake.

Now, once they get word of the competition, they start streaming in, swamping the ballots with their personal favorite film of 2008, Twilight. In the first round, they take out Milk. Second round, Iron Man. Then Wall-E. Now, they're winning against The Dark Knight. Twilight is beating The Dark Knight at the ballot for Best Movie of 2008. Regular visitors to the website, they don't much care for this. They don't like this huge influx of Twilight fanatics. Obviously, there's nothing that says huge Twilight communities can't mobilize and vote in this poll. But at the same time, seeing Twilight beating films like Wall-E and The Dark Knight is deeply troubling and chafes at their sensibilities.

Do you see, now? Do you get it? Am I making this situation clear?

Turbine is Twilight.
You Turbine fans are the Twilight fans.

I hope this shows you exactly what's going on here and you can now stop with the hang puppy dog pout and the "why me?" whimpers.

Kristen Stewart's actually not fake.



Sure, Kristen Stewart gives very strange and awkward interviews. So what? Just means she's not great at being a publicity whore. To me, that makes her more of a real person. Which of us, in real life, would be thrilled to give an interview to some stranger? It's tedious and boring. I'm sure we'd all rather be off smoking pot on a porch somewhere.

Look at Christian Bale, that dude doesn't give good interviews either. But he's a damn fine actor. I dunno... those two not being amazing in publicity just makes them more normal human beings in my eyes.

Friday, April 3, 2009

Something I never understood about Warhammer 40K...

Maybe it's because of my background in BattleTech, but I never understood why the Space Marines are considered the Emperor's finest and greatest weapon in the Imperium's arsenal. They're like, slightly bigger and bulkier then normal humans and you only get a million of em. Who cares about guys in power armor with slightly more powerful-than-usual guns when you have access to giant 100 foot tall castles on legs?

Microsoft Points... WTF?

I have to say, I've never been able to understand why you have to buy DLC with Microsoft points. Wouldn't it be easier to just buy DLC with money charged to one's credit card, instead of buying Microsoft points with your credit card, then buying DLC with those Microsoft points. Why not get rid of the middle man? Either option requires a credit card. I just don't understand the point of Microsoft points. Am I the only one here? Is there some reason for Microsoft points to exist? Now, if you could buy DLC with achievement points, that would be awesome and make a lot of sense. But buying Microsoft points with a credit card and then using that to buy DLC doesn't make any sense. I don't know who thought that made a great deal of sense. It is senseless to me.