I haven't had time to analyse SGU. I've only seen a few episodes online and I am waiting for the DVD box set before I really settle down on an opinion, but I do have three points I want to make.
First:- I want to like my characters. Make them people, not walking bags of neuroses with enough baggage's filled with half baked clichés. I don't mind bad decisions that come back to haunt them in later episodes, but there has to be a good reason for them. don't do it for the hell of it. They're not more believable, just people you want to punch!
Second:- Find a fucking tripod. Stop emulating BSG and stick to your guns of steady shots. Stop distracting me with "clever" angles and POV shots. I want the story to suck me in, not your artistic flair.
Third:- Stop hitting the plot eject button. If you're going to give us a massive problem with only a practically impossible solution for the love of god don't deux ex machina the story!
These are exactly the problems I had with BSG. God damn it I thought we were through with this crap... Oh right Caprica, that is on DVD already. Oh no, I'm going to have to see that too aren't I
Tuesday 30 March 2010
Sunday 28 March 2010
"Witness the resurrection brother's and sisters!"
There is only one thing that can resurrect me from Doctor Who awesomeness...
BRAND NEW MEAT LOAF ALBUM !
19th APRIL
BRAND NEW MEAT LOAF ALBUM !
19th APRIL
Monday 22 March 2010
Thursday 18 March 2010
Starhunter, whimper...
What the hell is this? How is it possible for a show this bad to exist? This is just beyond bad. I mean sure I joke about Star Trek enterprise being un-watchable but this... If I was to come up with a list of bad Sci-Fi shows with things like Flash Gordon, Team Knight Rider and Space precinct this show would be at the bottom of the pack.
It's so bad I'd rather watch anything else but I just can't tear my eyes from this train wreck of a series. The scripting is painful, the plot has more holes than a pair of rotten socks and the acting is literally the worst I have ever seen. The fact that this series has a fan base is a question for the ancient geek gods to ponder over. Good god that there was demand for a third season is beyond stupid. It is a crime that this rancid pile of inadequacy got two whole seasons while Firefly is now ridiculed for fighting for a handful more episodes.
Lets start with the basics; the first series was set in, what I guess, is the year 2285. That magical time where somewhere Captain Kirk and Captain Sheridan also exist. That alone should give you every idea as to how original this "show" is. I say "show" because anyone with half a intellect would recognise this an obscure and particularly brutal form of torture. Every cliché is touched upon and played out to astounding predictability.
Basically the story is humanity has left earth and spread across the solar system. Devolving in to a lawless civilisation governed by self interest. The lawmakers are almost powerless, the police are an empty threat and all that stands between common people and chaos is bounty hunters. Privately employed gun toting morons hired to hunt down criminals and pirates. As you can guess our heroes are a band of these Bounty hunters, flying about in a run down old space ship.
For the first year we follow Dante who decides that, while acting as a Bounty Hunter, he's going to look for his lost son. Searching the solar system for the pirates that took him Dante stumbles upon a wonderful discovery. In the centuries since discovering DNA it has been completely mapped, well almost. The last base pair was a mystery until it was discovered to be the key to becoming divine. I'm not kidding, thanks to this magical bullshit... sorry, I mean plot contrivance, people have all sorts of super powers. Genetic engineering folks, it's not used to fix horrible debilitating diseases just turn you into an extra from Heroes!
After breaking down and weeping in gibbering terror over the mind numbing crap of that concentrated rubbish I moved on to the second series. Trust me that is the best thing to do. The whole first year in less than a full paragraph. Bounty hunting, searching and wacky powers stretched out over twenty episodes. No character development, new ideas or even acting lessons. Believe me I was on my knees before the screen begging for development.
The was development in the second year. Off screen of course. Somehow the giant ship that they fly around in for no reason other than "ohh pretty" spent 15 years in suspended animation in hyperspace. Why? I don't know, maybe they just needed a plot development to ditch half the cast. Everyone, but the most attractive, talentless droning moronic prat of the lot jumped ship. The explanation :- "lost in hyperspace". That's right, all but one of the crew disappear as the ship is in hyperspace. Call me old fashioned but I wouldn't call a form of travel that casually obliterates five sixths of your crew practical. Not to worry, you know that missing son. He just happens to be on the space station that the ship docks at. Alive and well, and aside from the occasional time travelling flashback thanks to his magical powers, perfectly fine.
I want to die. I hate the New BSG but that's my personal choice. This is the ultimate in bad Sci-Fi. Confusing stupid and insulting to anyone who watched this . I'm off to watch Space:- Above and Beyond. That show was better, and admitting that is almost painful.
It's so bad I'd rather watch anything else but I just can't tear my eyes from this train wreck of a series. The scripting is painful, the plot has more holes than a pair of rotten socks and the acting is literally the worst I have ever seen. The fact that this series has a fan base is a question for the ancient geek gods to ponder over. Good god that there was demand for a third season is beyond stupid. It is a crime that this rancid pile of inadequacy got two whole seasons while Firefly is now ridiculed for fighting for a handful more episodes.
Lets start with the basics; the first series was set in, what I guess, is the year 2285. That magical time where somewhere Captain Kirk and Captain Sheridan also exist. That alone should give you every idea as to how original this "show" is. I say "show" because anyone with half a intellect would recognise this an obscure and particularly brutal form of torture. Every cliché is touched upon and played out to astounding predictability.
Basically the story is humanity has left earth and spread across the solar system. Devolving in to a lawless civilisation governed by self interest. The lawmakers are almost powerless, the police are an empty threat and all that stands between common people and chaos is bounty hunters. Privately employed gun toting morons hired to hunt down criminals and pirates. As you can guess our heroes are a band of these Bounty hunters, flying about in a run down old space ship.
For the first year we follow Dante who decides that, while acting as a Bounty Hunter, he's going to look for his lost son. Searching the solar system for the pirates that took him Dante stumbles upon a wonderful discovery. In the centuries since discovering DNA it has been completely mapped, well almost. The last base pair was a mystery until it was discovered to be the key to becoming divine. I'm not kidding, thanks to this magical bullshit... sorry, I mean plot contrivance, people have all sorts of super powers. Genetic engineering folks, it's not used to fix horrible debilitating diseases just turn you into an extra from Heroes!
After breaking down and weeping in gibbering terror over the mind numbing crap of that concentrated rubbish I moved on to the second series. Trust me that is the best thing to do. The whole first year in less than a full paragraph. Bounty hunting, searching and wacky powers stretched out over twenty episodes. No character development, new ideas or even acting lessons. Believe me I was on my knees before the screen begging for development.
The was development in the second year. Off screen of course. Somehow the giant ship that they fly around in for no reason other than "ohh pretty" spent 15 years in suspended animation in hyperspace. Why? I don't know, maybe they just needed a plot development to ditch half the cast. Everyone, but the most attractive, talentless droning moronic prat of the lot jumped ship. The explanation :- "lost in hyperspace". That's right, all but one of the crew disappear as the ship is in hyperspace. Call me old fashioned but I wouldn't call a form of travel that casually obliterates five sixths of your crew practical. Not to worry, you know that missing son. He just happens to be on the space station that the ship docks at. Alive and well, and aside from the occasional time travelling flashback thanks to his magical powers, perfectly fine.
I want to die. I hate the New BSG but that's my personal choice. This is the ultimate in bad Sci-Fi. Confusing stupid and insulting to anyone who watched this . I'm off to watch Space:- Above and Beyond. That show was better, and admitting that is almost painful.
Sunday 14 March 2010
Why Final Fantasy X SUCKS! My point of view!
I have to agree with the great and wise Spoony One that Final Fantasy X is god awful Final fantasy X PT1
After hearing how great seven and eight were I was always a little bitter that my friends never got them so I could experience the games first hand. I'm not a gamer, in fact these days I hardly ever pick up a game controller. I'm either reading, watching or listening to something else. I simply don't have time to play.
Take right now for instance; while I'm writing this I'm also watching classic episodes Star Trek Next Generation. In a while I might switch to the original series and try to finish a chapter of Fan Fiction, or load up BBC's iPlayer and watch whatever episode of Doctor Who has been repeated recently. I'm multi tasking, using my mind not to it's fullest potential but using it.
Paying computer games you're forced to spend all your time focussed on this one thing that is all too soon dull boring and pointless. You're just going over the same old routine, select and apply an action. It costs hundreds of pounds for a console these days, between £30 and £40 for the game, which denies you the plot unless you jump through certain hoops. There is none of the convenience of a book, which you can read any where without worrying that the batteries are running out. Games that force feed me my imagination always handcuff me from options.
There are all sorts of names for developments in games; "None linear game play", "AI scripting", "alternate endings" are all ideas that try to pretend their giving you an option. The fact is you don't. There are no options, decisions, goals or objectives that you can achieve that haven't been programmed. You have no choice but to jump the hoops offered.
Fiction is much more honest about it, knowing that the inter action isn't pushing buttons but conveying ideas. More importantly an episode of Star Trek doesn't force you to spend hours doing exactly the same thing over and over again until you hope for death. If even to change the monotony. This is just the start of my problems with Final Fantasy X.
If I wanted a story I'd read a book. If I wanted a story as predictably mindless as this one, with acting that could peel paint at fifty paces and cause sever internal haemorrhaging, I'd watch an Enterprise marathon. The story is rubbish, the plot twists predictable and the only character you could possibly like is hideously underused. Tidus is a whiny pathetic moron who's feminine Tokyo-pop features belong on the bottom of someone's shoe rather than anything else. I want to root for the hero, not jump into the screen and beat them half to death with a clue stick!
Playing the game is worse than annoying. You spend all your time "level grinding", fighting the same monsters over and over again to gain experience. After about four hours of grinding you can finally play the damn game, defeating the super powerful bosses and progressively harder monsters. Twenty minutes of game play layer the bosses are too powerful and monsters almost as strong. You're stuck, dying every time you turn around. The solution? Another four hours of grinding against another level of monsters. I'm not kidding, the only thing that makes it seem longer is the cut scenes.
The badly rendered, pointless, droning cut scenes that make you want to take a knife to your own wrists. Yes the cities and landscapes look good, but I don't care, we have holidays and paintings for that. I want to PLAY THE FUCKING GAME! Not watch someone with the brains of a common garden slug fart around trying to attract a witless fluttering and suicidal fool.
Yep, not only do I loath Tidus but Yuna has all the intelligence and personality of a maniacally depressive lemming. Her great quest across the world is to defeat the monster from Cloverfield by holding a seance. I wish, I truly wish that was a joke. It's not. for more than a thousand years this magically powered future have thought the only weapon was prayer. Just don't get me started on the rest of the mess with the characters. I'll leave that to grand master Spoony.
What I won't leave to him, even though he's hit upon it already, is Blitzball. You see for this game you have to, in order to get money and points, play in Blitzball tournaments. A made up game that is sort of like water polo, lacrosse, football and the bastardisation of reality. The game is played in a giant ball of water where, without breathing apparatus, you swim around for fifteen minuets at a time. Trying to score a goal in a net half an inch bigger than the ball. First, as pointed out, you cannot throw, kick, punch in water. Physics won't allow it, it's a simple act of compression. Second, WHO IN THE NAME OF THE GOOD FUCKING LORD WANTS TO PLAY SPORTS WHEN THEY PLUG IN A FANTASY GAME. Seriously, why the hell would you want to play sports, let alone the worst badly managed mangled excuse for a sport you have here? Why is it mangled? Because of point three of course. A sport that is a hideous mishmash of Football and Lacrosse should not, under any circumstances, be turn based! We should play it as a managerial game, where the player picks tactics before the match starts and watch the play through. Instead it is turn based, where whoever has the ball has a turn and what your players do depends on the settings you pick mid match! You have to pick, because the default settings are useless.
It's been years since I've played this game and I'm raging just remembering it. The real problem is just how much an impact the Final Fantasy series has had on gaming. Maybe it's wrong to lay the blame at it's feet, Zelda and several other game series are to blame too but in the end this is the game that sealed this opinion for me. A game is a game, a story is a story. Pong, for instance, is a game. It's a challenge between two players, the console is only the medium. Like a deck of cards or cricket stumps. The outcome is down to you and who you're playing against. Games like Space Invaders are played against yourself, your own highscore a target to beat. That's game play, that's entertaining, best of all you can kill the sound and play music over it. You don't need to arse around with save points or struggle for hours skilling up just to die on your way back home.
Final Fantasy X was a massive disappointment to me and it coloured my view on RPGs and modern consoles forever. I gave XII a chance and while the burns weren't as deep they still hurt. I'm not even going to entertain the idea of playing the new XIII. Even though Blitzball is gone and the characters are getting a little better the core problem I have outlined here has not changed and no matter what I keep coming back to this point
These games aren't games. They are sub-par, cliché riddled, poor stories masquerading as interactive cartoons that actively prevent you from enjoying the plot by forcing you complete pointless and suffocating tasks in a vain excuse to make the exorbitant fee required feel justified.
To those of you that like and enjoy Final Fantasy go an buy a book, I don't care if it's an I-can-read book with a few big words and a lot of pictures. Spark your imagination, put those controllers down and revel in what inspires you. Love life, shove a play list on your iPod and go for a walk. Go to the pub and utterly fail to chat up a woman. Watch Star Trek. Do something other than waste hours, days even weeks of your life farting around this pointless series of games.
After hearing how great seven and eight were I was always a little bitter that my friends never got them so I could experience the games first hand. I'm not a gamer, in fact these days I hardly ever pick up a game controller. I'm either reading, watching or listening to something else. I simply don't have time to play.
Take right now for instance; while I'm writing this I'm also watching classic episodes Star Trek Next Generation. In a while I might switch to the original series and try to finish a chapter of Fan Fiction, or load up BBC's iPlayer and watch whatever episode of Doctor Who has been repeated recently. I'm multi tasking, using my mind not to it's fullest potential but using it.
Paying computer games you're forced to spend all your time focussed on this one thing that is all too soon dull boring and pointless. You're just going over the same old routine, select and apply an action. It costs hundreds of pounds for a console these days, between £30 and £40 for the game, which denies you the plot unless you jump through certain hoops. There is none of the convenience of a book, which you can read any where without worrying that the batteries are running out. Games that force feed me my imagination always handcuff me from options.
There are all sorts of names for developments in games; "None linear game play", "AI scripting", "alternate endings" are all ideas that try to pretend their giving you an option. The fact is you don't. There are no options, decisions, goals or objectives that you can achieve that haven't been programmed. You have no choice but to jump the hoops offered.
Fiction is much more honest about it, knowing that the inter action isn't pushing buttons but conveying ideas. More importantly an episode of Star Trek doesn't force you to spend hours doing exactly the same thing over and over again until you hope for death. If even to change the monotony. This is just the start of my problems with Final Fantasy X.
If I wanted a story I'd read a book. If I wanted a story as predictably mindless as this one, with acting that could peel paint at fifty paces and cause sever internal haemorrhaging, I'd watch an Enterprise marathon. The story is rubbish, the plot twists predictable and the only character you could possibly like is hideously underused. Tidus is a whiny pathetic moron who's feminine Tokyo-pop features belong on the bottom of someone's shoe rather than anything else. I want to root for the hero, not jump into the screen and beat them half to death with a clue stick!
Playing the game is worse than annoying. You spend all your time "level grinding", fighting the same monsters over and over again to gain experience. After about four hours of grinding you can finally play the damn game, defeating the super powerful bosses and progressively harder monsters. Twenty minutes of game play layer the bosses are too powerful and monsters almost as strong. You're stuck, dying every time you turn around. The solution? Another four hours of grinding against another level of monsters. I'm not kidding, the only thing that makes it seem longer is the cut scenes.
The badly rendered, pointless, droning cut scenes that make you want to take a knife to your own wrists. Yes the cities and landscapes look good, but I don't care, we have holidays and paintings for that. I want to PLAY THE FUCKING GAME! Not watch someone with the brains of a common garden slug fart around trying to attract a witless fluttering and suicidal fool.
Yep, not only do I loath Tidus but Yuna has all the intelligence and personality of a maniacally depressive lemming. Her great quest across the world is to defeat the monster from Cloverfield by holding a seance. I wish, I truly wish that was a joke. It's not. for more than a thousand years this magically powered future have thought the only weapon was prayer. Just don't get me started on the rest of the mess with the characters. I'll leave that to grand master Spoony.
What I won't leave to him, even though he's hit upon it already, is Blitzball. You see for this game you have to, in order to get money and points, play in Blitzball tournaments. A made up game that is sort of like water polo, lacrosse, football and the bastardisation of reality. The game is played in a giant ball of water where, without breathing apparatus, you swim around for fifteen minuets at a time. Trying to score a goal in a net half an inch bigger than the ball. First, as pointed out, you cannot throw, kick, punch in water. Physics won't allow it, it's a simple act of compression. Second, WHO IN THE NAME OF THE GOOD FUCKING LORD WANTS TO PLAY SPORTS WHEN THEY PLUG IN A FANTASY GAME. Seriously, why the hell would you want to play sports, let alone the worst badly managed mangled excuse for a sport you have here? Why is it mangled? Because of point three of course. A sport that is a hideous mishmash of Football and Lacrosse should not, under any circumstances, be turn based! We should play it as a managerial game, where the player picks tactics before the match starts and watch the play through. Instead it is turn based, where whoever has the ball has a turn and what your players do depends on the settings you pick mid match! You have to pick, because the default settings are useless.
It's been years since I've played this game and I'm raging just remembering it. The real problem is just how much an impact the Final Fantasy series has had on gaming. Maybe it's wrong to lay the blame at it's feet, Zelda and several other game series are to blame too but in the end this is the game that sealed this opinion for me. A game is a game, a story is a story. Pong, for instance, is a game. It's a challenge between two players, the console is only the medium. Like a deck of cards or cricket stumps. The outcome is down to you and who you're playing against. Games like Space Invaders are played against yourself, your own highscore a target to beat. That's game play, that's entertaining, best of all you can kill the sound and play music over it. You don't need to arse around with save points or struggle for hours skilling up just to die on your way back home.
Final Fantasy X was a massive disappointment to me and it coloured my view on RPGs and modern consoles forever. I gave XII a chance and while the burns weren't as deep they still hurt. I'm not even going to entertain the idea of playing the new XIII. Even though Blitzball is gone and the characters are getting a little better the core problem I have outlined here has not changed and no matter what I keep coming back to this point
These games aren't games. They are sub-par, cliché riddled, poor stories masquerading as interactive cartoons that actively prevent you from enjoying the plot by forcing you complete pointless and suffocating tasks in a vain excuse to make the exorbitant fee required feel justified.
To those of you that like and enjoy Final Fantasy go an buy a book, I don't care if it's an I-can-read book with a few big words and a lot of pictures. Spark your imagination, put those controllers down and revel in what inspires you. Love life, shove a play list on your iPod and go for a walk. Go to the pub and utterly fail to chat up a woman. Watch Star Trek. Do something other than waste hours, days even weeks of your life farting around this pointless series of games.
Tuesday 9 March 2010
This... is going to be good!
Once upon a time I was six years old. I know, it feels like dinosaurs ruled the earth back then. The best you could hope for from your computer was 8 bit and that magic box in the corner ran on DOS. My family went to a friends house and I played my first computer game.
Nothing special and I wouldn't remember it to day if it wasn't for one point. While we were playing games they had a video on the TV. I remember looking up and being amazed, it was the original Tron. I spent years after that hunting the video down. As soon as I had DVDs I got the special edition. Once every six or so months I still dig it out and watch it, usually when I should be doing something else. It is a classic film to me. Right up there with The Dark Crystal for spectacles that shaped my life.
Now Years later there is a sequel. Here's the trailer:-
I know there is supposed to be a lot of good films out this year, like Iron Man 2, Toy Story 3 and the like but this... this is my Star Trek. I must see this movie, even if it's pants I simply have to marvel at it
Nothing special and I wouldn't remember it to day if it wasn't for one point. While we were playing games they had a video on the TV. I remember looking up and being amazed, it was the original Tron. I spent years after that hunting the video down. As soon as I had DVDs I got the special edition. Once every six or so months I still dig it out and watch it, usually when I should be doing something else. It is a classic film to me. Right up there with The Dark Crystal for spectacles that shaped my life.
Now Years later there is a sequel. Here's the trailer:-
I know there is supposed to be a lot of good films out this year, like Iron Man 2, Toy Story 3 and the like but this... this is my Star Trek. I must see this movie, even if it's pants I simply have to marvel at it
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