Thursday, July 31

[Hiatus Wed/Thursday] Closing Time

I realize I missed Wednesday's update, but I have a good excuse. I was watching Leonard Cohen perform live in Athens (or near it, anyway) and it was sublime. Cohen's voice was nothing short of spectacular for a 73, almost 74-year old man, and his group was equally fantastic. But Cohen was... so honest, kind, dignified. What a remarkable man he is. Truly a legend.

In other news, I'll be taking a small break from things and I'll be gone from Athens for a couple of weeks. Updates will be sparse in the meantime. Everybody needs a vacation after all!

I decided to throw in a Leonard Cohen song for good measure.



TL;DR version:

Taram-taram-dum
Taram-taram-dum

Tuesday, July 29

[Indie Tuesday] ColourWise

ColourWise is a game created with Adventure Game Studio, but unlike most games created with that engine, this is a puzzle game. About colors (sorry, I don't do British English), as you may have guessed. It's quite original, as far as puzzle games go, very fun, and even comes with its own level creator! Quite impressive.

(Picture stolen shamelessly from the AGS forums)

It came in third at Eegra's "First Annual Game Makin' Shindig", you can find the download page here and its site here.

TL;DR version:

There's a reason behind this post's lack of walls o' text, and that's because I can log in to Xbox Live again, whoo! I'm currently getting my ass kicked in the new High-Def version of Street Fighter 2. Damn, those people are crazy good.

Monday, July 28

[MMORPG Monday] WoW Chat Snippets

It seems that these days, after the rousing success of Blizzard's World of Warcraft, everybody wants to make an MMORPG. Sadly, nobody wants to break new ground, they just regurgitate what Blizzard and everyone else has tried before, it's all grind, grind, grind, empty your bags and questlog, then grind some more. There's several big-name MMORPG's on the horizon, such as Stargate, Warhammer, DC Universe, Knights of the Old Friggin' Republic, and I'm definitely forgetting more than a few. Sadly, there's no reason to believe that they'll bring anything new, but hope dies last and all that.

All the above is just a lengthy way of saying that MMORPG's on their own aren't that much fun, as the gameplay is so repetitive. However, what really makes these games are the people playing it alongside you. There are times you'll visit a dungeon you've finished more than 20 times because these awesome people are coming with you, sometimes even grinding is tolerable if you can have hilarious conversations about all sorts of crap at the same time.

There's something I've wanted to do for a while now, more than a year actually, and that is make a collection of all (or just most) of the hilarious things I came across while playing WoW. Turns out I had to do several collections, since I had so many funny screenshots. Hopefully they'll get a chuckle out of you too, although you really need to have played WoW for some of them to work.

I'll start off with the infamous Trade chat channel. This is the only chat channel that is accessible from all five capital cities, and thus the perfect place for idiots to impress their peers. It's also the biggest victim of Chinese gold sellers.

Moving on, there's a roleplaying addon, called FlagRSP, that helps people add a profile for their character, with a surname, a title and a description of their appearance. Sadly, most people think they can use this addon as means to show the world how awesome they are, and to invite other weirdos to have cybersex with them. Here's the result of that:

A collection of random quotes, funny situations and stupid names:

A few other random stuff I couldn't be bothered to place under a specific category:

And lastly, what really made me stay in the game long after I had gotten tired of the game itself, my guild chat. Some really fantastic, yet also utterly demented, people there who made me laugh out loud (A.K.A. LOL IRL!*) more times than I could possibly remember.



* Yes, I know that's pretty sad.

TL;DR version
:

It's rather telling when the main reason people would play a Massively Multiplayer Online Game is the basically the same one people visit a chatroom for. Sure, you have prettier graphics in WoW, AoC, etc., but it's the same principle.

Hopefully this trend will eventually change.

Sunday, July 27

[Off-Topic Sunday] Random news

The Internet monster, combined with an electrical outage ate my earlier post, but oh well. I'll just rewrite it.

On with the news then. One of my favorite games of all time, Dreamfall, has finally been released on the Xbox Originals lines of Xbox Live, even though it was supposed to come out four months ago. (via RagnarTornquist.com)

Better late than never, I guess. I've said it before, this game has a fantastic story and some of the best characters in a videogame. Play it!

Moving on, the new Futurama movie, Bender's Game, has a release date, November 4, 2008. A new Futurama movie is always good news, and I like the extra emphasis on Bender but... I hope it's better than the previous one, which I found to be pretty disappointing, even though I'm practically starving for more Futurama. (via TVshowsOnDVD.com)

And lastly, footage of the upcoming X-Men Origins: Wolverine movie has been released online, though it's hardly an official trailer. It looks... alright, I guess. You can find its two parts here and here, for the time being, but they might be pulled down rather quickly.

I'm keeping my expectations low, since X-Men 3 broke my heart (the Phoenix/Dark Phoenix saga is one of my fave stories), but this movie could be good. X-Men 2/Spider-Man 2/Iron Man good. The potential is there, with the character and the cast, let's hope the story is up to the task.

I like how they tease us with a scene of young James Howlett, I just hope the Origin references will be meaningful and not tacked on. Although, for a movie that's not supposed to be about the entire X-Men team, it sure has a lot of guest stars. Sabretooth (makes sense), DEADPOOOL, that other dude from Weapon-X I can't remember, Gambit. And was that Husk, from Gen-X? I could swear it was her.

At any rate, Wolvie is one of Marvel's best characters and he deserves a good movie. Hopefully they won't mess this up.

TL;DR version:

I hate Gambit. True story.

Also, I want a Deadpool movie. R rated, please.

Saturday, July 26

[Movie Saturday] The X-Files - Do YOU want to believe?


It's already been ten years since the first X-Files movie, Fight the Future. Excluding the fact that time flew by so disturbingly fast, only now have we finally managed to get a sequel to that movie, six whole years after the show's (insultingly bad) finale.

I got back from seeing the new movie, I Want to Believe, a little while ago. I really cannot be objective with this movie, as I was a huge fan of the TV show way back when (I never called my self an X-Phile though, thank the gods), so this movie was like a wish being fulfilled for me, than anything else.

Before I get into the movie itself, I feel the need to rant a little. You may skip the next three paragraphs if you're only interested in reading about the movie.

It's been an entire decade since the last X-Files movie. So many things have changed since. Back in '98, the show had just finished its fifth and most successful season ever, and it topped that with a movie that was a direct continuation of the season finale that used a better budget and longer length to really take its alien-invasion/government conspiracy storyline to new heights. It may have alienated the casual viewer, but to fans of the show like myself, it was a fantastic movie. Sadly, things only went downhill from there. The next two seasons were alright, but nowhere near the quality of their predecessors, and the last two were just plain bad, culminating to that insult of a finale that I mentioned earlier.

Furthermore, one thing I cannot overstate enough is how different decades the 90's and the 00's are. I'm not sure if it were just the result of lucky timing, or the creators of the X-Files really caught the spirit of the times. Things like alien abductions, the possibility of contact with an alien civilization, Roswell, conspiracy theories involving the government and possible cover-ups of evidence relating to all the above... Those things were huge during the last decade. Don't forget that about 2% of all Americans claimed to have been abducted by aliens in their life. Aliens and conspiracy theories were the hysteria of the decade.


This decade, however, is a lot darker and serious, our fears more mundane and realistic. Nobody cares about aliens anymore, we only fear terrorists and the fact that we might not be able to afford our next rent, or the ever-increasing price of oil, etc. Conspiracy theories seem outdated, as people don't care about Roswell anymore, everyday problems have a much bigger appeal, if you can call it that. Can the X-Files still be relevant at this time, when most people have outgrown their alien conspiracy theory phase?

(mild spoilers from here on, nothing too serious though)

These were the reservations I had with the movie prior to seeing it, and combined with the fact that early word of mouth was pretty discouraging, it made my expectations really, really low. Which, in retrospect, was probably a good thing. Because, and I'll get this out of the way now, I liked I Want to Believe, but I didn't love it, though I did try.



It was perhaps due to the limited appeal of aliens nowadays that the creators of IWtB decided to tackle a new, original story, along perhaps with the fact that it has been six whole years since the show ended and even fans of the show will have forgotten all the details. That, and also the fact that by the time the show ended, its mythology had become such a clusterfuck that nobody knew what was going on, and nobody would bother to remember. At any rate, the story of IWtB is a much more down to earth, tame kind of story.

Did it really have to be so tame, though? The mystery that Mulder and Scully face is pretty mundane, perhaps not even real X-Files material, despite the presence of gay Russian Cylons. If IWtB had aired like a two-part filler episode during the show's run, nobody would have noticed a difference, and most would have considered it rather forgettable as well. The action scenes are mediocre, and most suspensful scenes are far too predictable. There are several hints at something larger and deeper, as well as references to the show itself, but on the whole, the story feels lacking. Although the fact that the one piece of information that ultimately solves the case was taken from a real-life event (link - SPOILERS) was pretty neat.

One thing that I really liked though was the fact that the FBI had to turn to Mulder when they had run out of leads, undoubtedly a reference to the fact that, in his hayday, Mulder was the Bureau's finest profiler. It's an easy thing to forget about Mulder, given the emphasis on his "Spooky" persona, but he always was a brilliant detective and researcher.

Though, I have to ask, what the fuck was up with Scully doing research on stem cell surgery by googling the damn thing? She's supposed to be a brilliant scientist, if she doesn't have books on the subject, surely she knows what sites she should check, geebus. In my eyes, it felt like an attempt to appeal to the younger demographic, a way of saying "see, we still know how things are done!" that falls flat on its face and makes for some really poor storytelling. It's just one scene though, so I'll let it slide. Though the whole subplot with the sick kid did feel a bit uncessesary in general.

What makes this movie is its two iconic protagonists, Mulder and Scully. I can't imagine how someone who has never seen an episode of the series would ever pick up one tenth of what's going on between the two characters, which in a sense is rather strange for a movie that's trying to be stand-alone, but for a fan it's a real treat. The movie explores most familiar themes between the two, such as Mulder's belief (thus vindicating the title, despite the lack of aliens) and Scully's pragmatism, in a way that is both endearing and enjoyable. I'll be damned if Duchovny doesn't look much older than he used to, though.

I got carried away again, as if I were an English major or something, so I'll get right to the conclusion. Can an X-Files movie still be relevant today? Yes, somewhat. The fact that IWtB had a whole new plot behind it definitely helped, murder mysteries never get old after all. Add to that two characters that are really strong and deep, even by today's standards, and the foundation is there.

Sadly, the plot itself is weak and predictable, and the two protagonists will probably appeal the most only to seasoned viewers of the show. Which makes me wonder, if you're making a movie targetted mainly at fans of the show, why not relate it to the overall mythology, or at least hint to it? I don't get it. Hopefully, the next movie (if we ever get one) will provide that.

As a long-time fan of the show, I enjoyed it and I expect most other fans starving for some Fox&Dana goodness will feel the same, as long as you believe (haw haw) in it. You have to watch it as an X-Files fan, not as a casual observer. Though I can definitely understand those that will not like this movie, fans or otherwise.

My final rating is 73 out of 100 sunflower seeds.

TL;DR version:

Don't mind the fact that this movie isn't as good as it should have been after having to wait ten years for it, just watch it anyway. This way, we might actually get a real sequel to the series that deals with the inevitable alien invasion (spoilers OLOL) that the wretched episode called The Truth never got around to dealing with.

I also wanted to make a mean joke about that hospital that's being run by priests and nuns, but I'm drawing a blank. I'll get back to it.

Lastly, it sure feels weird watching a movie were snow has covered everything and it's like minus fuck-all degrees, when it's the middle of the summer in real life. Kind of like watching a rerun of a Christmas episode during Easter.

Friday, July 25

[Internets Friday] VReel.net beta is up

No sports post yesterday as I was out watching The Dark Knight for a third time (it's incredible how many little details I missed out the first two times), not to mention that this has been an utterly uneventful week for sports. I'll make up for the missing post on Sunday, fingers crossed.

At any rate, the VReel beta has been around for little more than a month now, which is enough time for a decent amount of videos to start appearing on the site. While it's a bit silly to even think that it will ever have as many videos as YouTube, that might not be necessarily a bad thing. After all, following the footsteps of its predecessor Stage6, VReel is about quality and not quantity.

This quality is definitely there, with the use of the DivX codec, videos are as crisp as they were on Stage6. Content is still a bit limited, naturally, but with "more then one hundred thousand unique hits per day" according to Wikipedia, it's only a matter of time before things get interesting.

On a side note, I've tickets for the new X-Files movie tomorrow, I really hope it won't suck...

TL;DR version:

While VReel might not ever attract as big an audience as YouTube, it does have higher-quality videos, and fewer retarded comments from users. Those are two major improvements over YT.

Wednesday, July 23

[Comic book Wednesday] Five Batman graphic novels you should read

The Thor article is postponed yet again since I finally got Mass Effect today and I really want to play the fucking game, been waiting since November.

Therefore, in light of The Dark Knight's release and all-around awesomeness (and in retrospect something I should have done last week), here are my top-5 favorite Batman graphic novels ever, and why you should read them.

I purposely ignore Frank Miller's run on Batman, because it goes without saying that those are must-reads, and are universally acclaimed as the best stories in the series, ever. As for the rest, in no particular order:

- Batman: Hush

I seemed to like this story more than most people. It's not something I can completely explain, but I thought Hush was thoroughly entertaining. A great mystery, a strange new (?) villain is playing with the Dark Knight's mind through the use of some of his older enemies, lots of guest stars, and amazing art by Jim Lee.

One thing I especially liked was the fact that this story is one of the rare cases where we see Bruce Wayne's more human side, in his relationship with Catwoman, it feels like if he's actually trying to act like a human being. Personally, I found it to be a more realistic approach to his character than most.

Though that stupid mutt that Superman has almost ruins the entire story.

- Batman: A Death in the Family

Robin dies in it. Shame they had to find a replacement eventually, but it was good while it lasted.

(Cynicism aside, a -permanent- death of a major character is something that very rarely happens in comic books, and it's even rarer that it's handle as well as in this story. The aftermath haunted Batman for more than a decade.)

- Batman: Arkham Asylum

Dave McKean's art should be reason enough for anyone to pick up this graphic novel, but the fact that we get a glimpse of what happens to all those super-villains once they've been arrested seals the deal. It's completely trippy, fairly demented and almost scary at times. A very different, unique, approach to the Batman universe (Batmanverse?).

- Batman: The Killing Joke

While origin stories rarely work, when they do work, they are absolutely astounding. The Killing Joke is such a success story, and with Alan Moore behind it, it shouldn't come as a surprise. It follows the nurture over nature theory which suggests that villains, even utterly insane ones like the Joker, were once normal people just like anyone of us, who one day got unlucky and had to go thorugh more than they could handle. This is what (presumably) happened to the Joker, and this is what in turn he is trying to do to the infallible Commissioner Gordon.

The Joker's depiction in this story was the main influence behind his silver screen version in
The Dark Knight.

- Batman: The Long Halloween
(Don't read the Story Summary on the Wiki, some crazy nutso summarized the entire graphic novel there!)

While the Batman's is supposed to be "The Greatest Detective in the World", we so rarely get to see him practice his detective skills fully. Not so in this tale. If you exclude for the presence of Batman and some of his iconic villains, and replace them with a regular detective and run-of-the-mill outlaws, then The Long Halloween reads like a noir detective story, based on the hunt of a serial killer who only kills during holidays.

The atmosphere is fantastic, the artwork beautiful (and I'm no fan of Tim Sale), and the story is well... sublime. The "Dream Team" trio of Batman, Gordon and Harvey Dent presented at the first half of the novel is amazing, essentially it is the story of three people against an entire, corrupt, city. And for a while there, they were actually winning.

This is what makes Dent's eventual downfall all the more tragic, in a way that really affects the reader as we had seen what he was capable of, and what his potential was. Dent really was the best of the three, yet he was the one that was driven mad, the one that lost everything. In a sense, Dent's tale is a beautiful, yet sad, allegory of the tragedy that is the human existence.

On top of that, after all these years, we're still not exactly, 100% sure who the Holiday killer was.

Along with The Killing Joke, The Long Halloween was the main inspiration behind The Dark Knight.

TL;DR version:

Feel free to comment on how much my list sucks and why I'm an idiot for leaving out "Batman graphic novel 'X'".

I also think that a Batman action-adventure game based on his detective skills would be brilliant.

Tuesday, July 22

[Retro Tuesday] Loom revisited. Also, headaches

My head is killing me today, and I am feeling seriously dizzy. It shouldn't be anything serious, but it's annoying me enough to not be able to right anything properly today. Theeeeerefooooooore, this is going to be another one of those short posts accompanied by a YouTube clip.

Loom, a 1990 game by LucasFilm (currently LucasArts) is a very unique experience, even when compared to the other great adventure games released by the company in the early to mid 90's. One of the first graphical adventures to completely abandon the use of an inventory and related puzzles, the gameplay instead revolves around the use of a distaff and the musical tones the protagonist, Bobbin Threadbare, can play with it.

From a technical point of view, the game was fantastic for its age, especially the CD version, with VGA graphics and full speech. I played the game as a kid, when CD-ROM drives and sound cards were something I'd only read in magazines about, but the 16-color EGA graphics and PC speaker grunts had their own charm back then. Though I find that the 256-color VGA version is really beautiful even today, as it has aged really well. The music is also outstanding, as it should be in a game which emphasises its use so much, but what really stands out is the use of excerpts from Chopin's Swan Lake.

Loom's plot is fairly basic at first glance, as it is basically the typical story of an unwilling young man who is tasked with saving the world, but Brian Moriarty weaved (pardon the pun) a beautiful tale around this basic premise. I can't get into any detailed analysis at the moment due to my amazing nearly-exploding head, but I will say that the story manages to surprise me with its depth and maturity even on my current (second) playthrough, sixteen whole years after my first experience with the game. The game is also quite violent at times, though the violence makes perfect sense in the context it's presented in, something that was another departure from most LucasArts/LucasFilm games of the day.

Sadly the game wasn't as successful as its peers, which presumably is a direct concequence of its unique nature. We tend to idealize about those times, but the early to mid 90's were a time when adventure games were the FPS's of today, and Sierra/Roberta Williams were pumping one sequel after the other, with the predictable results of often low quality, bug-ridden games. In that context, especially when considering that there was no fan-driven Internet hype machine at the time, it wasn't at all surprising that people preferred Sierra's by-the-numbers sequel than a completely new, and sometimes perplexing game such as Loom.

If you would allow me to indulge into a "What-if?" theorycraf rant, I'd have to say that it really is a shame that Loom wasn't a big mainstream success. Had it been such a success, more games would have copied its unique point and click system, which isn't based on such arbitrary verbs or icons for such things as "Talk" or "Use" and so on. But more importantly, more games would have copied its unique approach to puzzles, and its lack of inventory, instead of the countless bullshit inventory puzzles we had to endure over the years. You know, the kind where you have to rub every single item in your inventory of 20+ items on every single part of your screen and hope for some results. Makes one wonder how much more intuitive adventure games would have been had this design convention been abandoned, but oh well.

Rant's over, here's the intro of the game, alongside with some of the first few areas. I have to confess, listening to Bobbin's voice after all these years is a strange feeling.



There's also a speedrun of the entire game on YouTube, where some nutso finishes the entire game in 27 minutes. I haven't watched it, but it should make for an interesting watch for people who want to find out more about the game but don't want to play it. Though I wouldn't be surprised if he skips every single cutscene. At any rate, you can find said video here.

TL;DR version:

"The last leaf of Autumn."

Monday, July 21

[DS Monday] Ninja Gaiden: Dragon Sword


After a rather underwhelming E3, nothing really topped that FFXIII announcement, it's time for gamers to return to their backlog, and the summer is the perfect time for that!

The first game in my list was the latest entry in the Ninja Gaiden series, Dragon Sword, for the Nintendo DS. The DS hardly seemed like the ideal platform for the top-notch graphics and high-paced action of the Ninja Gaiden series, but somehow Tecmo made it work. The touch controls work perfectly, combat is very satisfying and just plain fun, the graphics are really nice and the bosses are huge.


It's hardly without its faults, though. The game is very short, it took me a little less than six hours to finish, and while I will always take a short yet good game over a game that has tons of filler, not to mention there are several reasons to replay the game, I can't help but feel that they could have easily added at least a couple more hours of quality gameplay.

Then there's the issue of the game's surprisingly low difficulty. I'm using the word "surprisingly", because all recent Ninja Gaiden games are notoriously difficult. So much so that they're almost a benchmark on how difficult a contemporary mainstream game can be. I guess that Tecmo had to make the game appealing to the DS demographic, but when you can kill most bosses in your first try, something doesn't feel right. In fact, I'd say that some bosses felt easier than some other random encounters with normal enemies in the game. The "Head Ninja" (wut?) difficulty that is unlocked once you finish the game makes it feel more like a traditional Ninja Gaiden game, but not everyone will stomach a second playthrough.



Lastly, the story is incredibly, undeniably, bad, so much that it's bound to make you groan several times (it involves a demon conspiracy, 'nuff said), but that's practically a given with Ninja Gaiden games these days, so it hardly comes as a surprise.

TL;DR version:

Apparently Dragon Sword didn't sell all that well, which is rather amusing, given that people complain about the lack of traditional games on the DS, and when they are finally given a game adhering to their rules, they don't buy it. Still, it's a quality purchase for DS owners.

Saturday, July 19

[Movie Saturday] The Dark Knight

I watched it yesterday.

It's as good as people would have you think. It's exactly what I expected from the movie after the ending of Batman Begins and that wonderful scene with Gordon's speech about escalation and the introduction of the Joker card.

Believe the hype, especially about Ledger.

Watch. This. Movie.

TL;DR version:

There's so many things I want to say about this movie, but I'm not sure where to start. I'll give it a try anyway.

(SPOILERS AHEAD)

It really is different to every movie based on a comic book that came before it. Even Batman Begins. The Dark Knight feels like more like a serious cop drama starring a guy in a bat suit, rather than a spandex action flick. It's the perfect rendition of those dark, serious, gritty Batman graphic novels, rather than the average "villain of the week" Detective comics issue written by some random hack, which is what the Schumacher Batman films felt like, by the way.

I understand some people, and especially critics, did not like the movie exactly for that reason, that it tries to be something more than an action film with superheroes. Well, fuck me. There's just no pleasing some people, is there?

Personally, I absolutely loved the direction they took with this movie. It felt true to the source material, the graphic novels as I mentioned above, and it made for a more realistic, genuinely interesting movie. Not exactly a more "fun" movie, but Bruce Wayne was never about the fun to begin with.

Performances as a whole were amazing. People seem to hate Bale's Batman voice, but I didn't mind it. Hell, if somebody just kicked your ass and then talks to you like that, you will be intimidated. Caine and Freeman were outstanding in their roles, and their characters are excellent foils to Bruce Wayne, while Gyllenhaal did an excellent work with Rachel, even though her screen time is pretty limited. The actor who really surprised me, however, was Aaron Eckhart's portrayal of Harvey Dent and Two-Face (I told ya about those spoilers!) From being the White Knight of Gotham to the psycho killer with the gruesome face injury, Exkhart did a tremendous job. While the story of Dent's fall itself could perhaps do with a little more (just a bit) development, his performance more than makes up for it.

I loved the story of Dent's fall in The Long Halloween, but the version offered in this movie makes perfect sense in the confines of the movie itself. Two-Face wasn't set up to be a major villain, but more of a character to illustrate a point. Or perhaps two points, those being the Joker's point that everyone can be corrupted, and Alfred's warning about not knowing when and where to stop. But that is another story altogether.

I purposely didn't mention Heath Ledger's performance as the Joker so far, as I was expecting that he'd be great. I've already confessed to being a fan of his, and the trailers alone made his performance really seem like something special. Only the trailers said part of the story, and the actual performance was better than I expected. I honestly had to remind myself that this was Ledger, an actor playing a role, and not a real lunatic sociopath. He makes the role seem so natural, it's downright absurd. We're talking about a guy with a face full of makeup, wearing a purple tax, this seriously shouldn't look realistic!

And yet he pulled it off. From the way he delivered his lines ("Hiiiii!") to his body language, to his humor, to his worldview and the way he conducts things... If he doesn't get a place in the pantheon of greatest, most iconic, movie villains of all time (fuck the Oscars), alongside Hannibal Lecter, Norman Bates and HAL 9000, it'll be a great injustice. His death was a terrible loss, especially after such a role which fully illustrates what an amazing talent he had. Damnit, Heath.

Seven paragraphs in, and I haven't even talked about the story. And I could easily spend more than seven paragraphs talking about it, but since it's kinda late I'll keep it to two. Much like Eckhart's performance, I wasn't really expecting the story to be so deep, so engaging. I was expecting it to have a strong story, but nothing spectacular, much like Batman Begins. Boy, was I wrong. There's so much there, so many themes, allusions, symbolism, social commentary, Hell the Joker's rants alone strike eerily, if not uncomfortably, close to home when it comes to human nature. And the best thing about all these elements is the fact that none are heavy-handed, or presented in a preachy manner.

I'll speak about my favorite examples of such storytelling techniques in a later post since I want to digest them fully before I do so, but if I were to mention one that comes to mind right now, it would be the Jokers speech on rules, plans, people's obsession with them and how that's illustrated perfectly with Harvey Dent. It was part of a plan that made Dent lie about being the man behind the Batman mask, a plan that was supposed to help them capture the Joker and ultimately lead the good guys to win. And it would have worked, had two corrupted cops decided to not play by Dent's rules, and instead betray him, ultimately leading to the death of his fianceé and his own horrible mal/transformation. Yet still, even after Dent lost half his face and his soul, he had to cling to a set of rules. He wouldn't kill the woman who betrayed his trust, because his own (new) rules prohibited him from doing so. In a way, even in insanity, Dent stubbornly based his only hope for sense in the world in his morality code, even if it were as arbitrary as the flip of a coin. And there's another point to be made about luck here, but I won't get into that right now.

Was there something I didn't like? Well, that whole cell-phone based sonar felt a bit tacky and didn't quite fit with the rest of the movie, although it did help paint a very amoralistic image of Batman. Which, incidentally, is one of my favorite parts of the story, and which I really want to get to in a future post.

(Goes to show how much I liked the movie when I mention positive things in the paragraph about the things I didn't like, doesn't it?)

Another thing would be the lack of music during some of the action scenes, I've been spoiled by the wonderful theme and would really like to hear it more often. In a similar note, I felt like we didn't hear the Joker's laugh enough times, but then again we'll probably sleep more easily this way. Lastly, the cynic in me believes that had the two ferries incident taken place in real life, at least one of the boats would have ended up exploding, and that they kind of dropped the ball with that one. Then again, I'll be the first to admit that I may be a bit too cynical, not to mention that I've been completely conditioned by the Song of Ice and Fire series, where people are dying left and right. Plus, I'm not sure that agreeing with the Joker on the nature of human beings is a good thing to do.

Did I ever mention that most, if not all, things and situations remind me of a joke? Because they do.

Friday, July 18

[Internets Friday] The Phishing IQ Test

If you don't know what phishing is, you're doing it wrong already. From Wikipedia:

"phishing is the criminally fraudulent process of attempting to acquire sensitive information such as usernames, passwords and credit card details, by masquerading as a trustworthy entity in an electronic communication."

Sometimes phishing is fairly obvious, many typos and bad grammar in an e-mail, ridiculous claims, etc. But people adapt, and so do phishers. It helps being paranoid of course, I generally ignore all e-mails from people I don't know.

However, I came across an Phishing IQ test lately, and realized I'm not paranoid enough. I only got 5 out of 10 in that test, my paranoia made me think 3 legit sites were out to uh... phish me, but I was also fooled by two phishing sites. In retrospect, I should have been paying more attention.

It's a nifty test to take, though as with most tests, it shouldn't be taken too seriously, and could help most people identify phishing e-mails with more ease.

TL;DR version:

Greetings to you, I am the Prince of Nigeria. I want you to have my money, but you'll have to give me yours first.

Thursday, July 17

[Basketball Thursday] World Olympic Qualifiers group phase wrap-up

So far, so predictable.

There wasn't a single surprise in the entire group phase of the tournament, with Korea almost providing the exception with their near upset over Canada. However, after leading with sixteen points, they completely chocked and didn't score for almost two minutes. Otherwise, all other games had the expected results, with the favorites getting easy victories.

The teams that have played the best so far are Greece, Germany, Croatia and Slovenia. They're probably going to make it to the semifinals too, and three of them will make it to the Olympics. My money is on Germany, Croatia and of course Greece, but I'm hardly impartial.

That being said, I was really impressed by the way we played last night. A far cry from last year's snooze-fest, the Greek team offered the same type of aggressive defense that became its trademark and gave the team the second place in the World Cup of '06. If we keep this up, I like our chances at an Olympic medal. After all, the team played the absolute worst way possible last year, and still managed to come in fourth.

Beyond that, now that they've managed to get Chris Kaman, Germany has become a much better team, it seems. Rather than expecting everything from Dirk, now they have someone else to depend on, on both sides of the field. Should help the team a lot.

I was kind of bummed yesterday as I arrived a few minutes late at the game, and missed the New Zealanders' patented Haka war dance. I always wanted to see that live, and I'll miss it again tomorrow as I'll be watching The Dark Knight, finally. It's a fair trade, plus I was able to see Dirk kick so much ass yesterday, with 35 points in 32 minutes. That guy could have easily been the best player in the world right now, had he been born an American.

TL;DR version:

Dirk Nowitzki rules you.

Wednesday, July 16

[Fancy-word Wednesday] How to break it to your friends that their story sucks

It's probably has happened to everyone, more than once too, at that. Somebody close to you has written something, and it's not really that great. In fact, it's actually rather horrible. Not just from your subjective point of view, it's objectively a piece of excrement.

How do you break it to your friend? You have to be honest, because you should be honest to friends when it comes to things like this, and it's better if you break the news to them, rather than say a publisher who will laugh at their face. But at the same time, you have to be careful and not hurt their feelings because a) they're your friend, doofus, and b) it might dissuade them from writing any further, if even their friends hate their work.

Neil Gaiman recently answered such a question in his blog, and as with most things Gaiman does, I find myself agreeing completely. You can find his answer here (scroll down a bit), my favorite part would be the following:

"And if you do decide to tell them what's wrong with their book then you don't have to tell them everything that's wrong with it."

This is great, because while you are still telling the truth, naming every single thing you hated is probably not going to win you any more points with your friend. Not to mention you'll probably look like a douche.

TL;DR version:

I don't know about you, but instead of writing, I'm now going to see Dirk Nowitzki play basketball. And after that I'm also seeing the Greek national team. Le woot!

Tuesday, July 15

[Retro Tuesday] The actual Retro Tuesday Post

Since E3 is still going strong with quite a few big announcements, none as big as the Final Fantasy XIII one as of yet though, it's kind of hard to concentrate on anything else game-related. Still, since today's theme is retro/indie games, I'll stick to the subject.

At any rate, today's subject is the Red Alert series of strategy games. What started as a prequel/sidestory to the Command & Conquer series, as well as a thinly veiled criticism of Soviet Russia and/or a Tom Clancy fangasm, eventually became its own, independent series.



The first game came out in 1996 and had a very interesting story premise. What would happen if Hitler was killed (by Einstein, no less) before he gained power? According to Westwood, the people behind Red Alert, not really that much. The major difference would be that instead of Hitler, Stalin would try to take over the world. With tesla cannons. And jet planes. Well alright, Secret Weapons of the Luftwaffe did teach us that during WWII the Germans did have access to jet planes as well, but they weren't exactly as advanced as the ones in Red Alert.



That was the main catch of this game. Einstein's use of a time machine to kill Hitler created a rift in the time-space continuum, which according to every rule of Comic Book Physics means that it's entirely possible for Apache helicopters to co-exist with WWII-era tanks, and Tesla coil weapons (which never existed in our timeline) to co-exist with ordinary flamethrowers. This meant that the developers were free to add all sorts of strange units to what was otherwise a very realistic game, much like its predecessor, Command & Conquer. The fact that the plots of these two games are connected through the character of Kane/Yuri also helped explain the level of technology available in the C&C games.



However, the sequel that came out four years later was much different as far as plot was concerned. In those four years that had passed, Westwood was bought out by Electronic Arts, and Blizzard had released their magnum opus, Starcraft, which went on to become a huge success and steal C&C's thunder.

It was perhaps a side-effect of the buyout, but while Red Alert 2's story is a direct continuation of the original game's, there is no connection to the main Command & Conquer storyline. In fact, as of this game, the Red Alert universe is supposed to be a different, perhaps parallel, one to the C&C universe. This was kind of a disappointment to some fans, me included, as we crave our Kane drama, and I was never a big fan of retcons to be honest. Later on, EA tried to tie the two universes together again, but this story has become one big clusterfuck already.



All that aside, while RA2 wasn't as good as its predecessor, or indeed its competitors, it was a really fun game and had even quirkier units than anything else. From Rocketeers and Chrono Legionnaires which erase enemies from time, to tanks shaped like giant spiders and attack... squids (I'm not making this up), the unit selection was definitely fresh and unique.

And then there was the main theme, Hell March. Inarguably one of the best themes in gaming history, anyone disagreeing will be tesla coil'd to death. Here's a really nice video compilation of movies from the games, with Hell March playing on the background:



Red Alert 3 was announced a while ago, and the people who bought the expansion for C&C3 will have access to its beta soon -lucky bastards, but so far we hadn't seen a single thing from it. While we still don't know much (will Yuri/Kane still play a role? He should, he gets around), the following video shows us one thing: There's a new faction, the Japanese! And true to the series, they have some really loopy units, such as jet planes that change into robots, Robotech style, and giant mechs. Can't wait, personally! I'm more excited about this game than Starcraft 2, in fact.



TL;DR version:

Retro, smetro. Here's a couple of shiny new things:

Disappointed by Street Fighter IV's cast so far? Capcom has now created a poll that lets fans vote for the next character to be added to SFIV's roster. While to someone jaded and cynical like myself, it seems like further confirmation of SFIV being complete fan service, it's still a neat thing, and will hopefully mean that we'll see more characters than just the entire cast of SFII. Better start mashing that F5 key.

And since my #1 game on my wish list is Gears of War 2, here's the cinematic trailer that's just as good as the Mad World trailer of the original (A.K.A. best trailer ever)



November can't come fast enough.

[Monday Post] Seriously, this is still Monday

I've been trying to log in to Blogger all day long, but I was constantly getting time out errors. I think I have to blame my connection which has been acting up lately.

At any rate, I was going to talk about E3, with the regular crap as how it's not as important as it used to be, blah blah, adding a little touch of how hype can make or break anything these days, such as the Sony PS3 "$600" disaster of '06. To that effect, I'd mention BioWare's upcoming game, Dragon Age, which had one (actually two) of the worst teaser trailers ever, so utterly generic and stupid it hurt.

It remains to be seen whether the hype machine will manage to recover Dragon Age, but right now the big news is something different, something that would make my "E3 isn't as important as it used to be" statement utterly null and void.

You see, Final Fantasy XIII, one of the most anticipated games of this generation of gaming, is no longer a PS3 exclusive, as it's also coming to the Xbox 360. That's huge, as FFXIII was one of the last big exclusives the PS3 had. I'm too tired and very unsober to read through the fanboy outrage right now, and I have the new Futurama DVD to watch, but I'll savour that for tomorrow, it should be sweet.

It makes sense though, this move. Given the costs of games these days, it only logical that most games are not confined to one console anymore. Game companies are supposed to make money after all, not drown in debt. It really feels like the era of exclusives (outside of first-party games, naturally) is coming to an end.

To me, a usually-happy-but-lately-grumpy (UNBAN ME ALREADY) Xbox360 owner, it doesn't really change much. I'm not a very big fan of the series, and I generally find jRPG's boring, but this sure is a big deal, and the outcome could be huge. We'll see, I guess.

TL;DR version:

Pigs are a-flyin'.

Saturday, July 12

[Movie Saturday] The Max Payne movie

If there is a list out there named "Best videogames with the worst names ever", Max Payne is definitely high up that list, alongside such games as Banjo-Tooie and The Legend of Zelda: Link's and Terra's Excellent Adventure. Seriously, naming a shooter game, and even its protagonist, Max Pain... That takes balls. Huge, gigantic, balls.

Max Payne and its 2003 sequel are highly stylized third-person shooters, with a presentation that's quite different to most games, and the first game to incorporate "that Matrix slow-motion thing" effect in its gameplay. So effectively in fact that this effect has ever since been called Bullet Time, a name first coined by the developers of this game.


Max Payne is effectively a film noir game, with its story focusing on a framed cop with an aptitude for brooding monologues. One of the most impressive aspects of the game's presentation were the cutscenes, which were presented in the form a page ripped directly out of a graphic novel, with speech bubbles and all. While the story itself was fairly convoluted and quite frankly bonkers, as a rule of the thumb, I prefer a pretentious yet witty story over a completely brainless one. And seeing a shooter with a story that's not utterly brainless was definitely a welcome change.


As I was reading through the manual of the very first Max Payne all the way back in 2002, I noticed something very interesting; it was alluding to a Max Payne movie that was already in the works and should have been released "soon". Well, fast forward seven years after that piece was written (in 2001, for you math types out there), we're finally getting this movie. It will be based on the first movie, Valkyr drug and all, with a few rumored aspects of the second game making it as well.

The cast looks solid, Mark "Marky Mark" Wahlberg is set to play Max and has proved himself to be a very competent actor, with gruff, brooding characters being something of a specialty of his. And then there's Mila Kunis who's... well, hot. I'm a bit worried about the director though, John Moore, who was responsible for such atrocities as Behind Enemy Lines and the 2006 version of The Omen, but I'm willing to keep an open mind.


What I'm really worried about, however, is the movie's rating, which has been confirmed to be a PG-13. I honestly do not get it. The original game is a dark, violent tale of a man's bloody and gory path towards redemption. There's a lot of violence, swearing, and everything else you might expect from such a tale. A PG-13 all but ensures that the movie will have little of those. Hell, you can't even have an actor smoke a cigarette anymore with that rating. It seems you can't do anything fun in a movie these days anymore without having the censors running after you.

Stop!

That blows my mind, really. I'm not a violent person (that incident where I broke a PS2 controller while playing P.E.S notwithstanding), in fact I abhor mindless violence. I also don't smoke. Okay, so I swear all the fucking time, but that's not the point here. Swearing and violence make sense in the context of the world where the game takes place. It's a dark place, where things aren't fair where bad things happen to good people all the time. And its protagonist is a man bent on revenge, who while on his quest for vengeance, not only becomes as bad as the people he's hunting, he arguably becomes worse.

So yes, I believe that the freedom given by an "R" rating is what is needed to bring Max Payne's dark world into the silver screen (clichés ahoy!) properly. It goes without saying that you can have a serious, violent, story with even the most vibrant pastel colors, but in the case of the Max Payne movie, it's also about staying true to its roots.


An example that comes to mind are the two Alien Versus Predator movies. While I'm far from being a fan of either one, the first movie went for a PG-13 rating that was completely out of place for fans of both original franchises, which were both really damn violent. The result was an overwhelming disappointment for most people. The sequel, AVP: Requiem, went for an "R" rating, and while that alone didn't make it a better movie, it definitely made it feel more true to its sources.

I for one liked AVP:R more than its predecessor though, and a quite fun movie on its own rights, but others would disagree. Oh, well.


And, to go back to Max Payne, if nothing else, Hell. How can you have a film noir without anyone smoking? That's just not right.

All this bitching aside, the first trailer for this movie is looking really damn good. They've captured the style and atmosphere of the games, Wahlberg is looking good in his role, and the action scenes seem suspensful. If not for the rating thing, I'd be sold on this movie already. Here's the actual trailer itself, so you can make up your own minds:



TL;DR version:

While there's still time for Max Payne the movie to fuck up everything the game stood for, The Dark Knight premieres on Thursday, and that one has been rated awesome. Not to mention that we're getting the new X-Files movie the week after this, though I'm a bit worried about that one.

Friday, July 11

[Radio Friday] Resonance FM

I've always been a huge fan of the radio as a medium. I find it's appealing on a far more personal level than anything else, and there's less pretenses to be upheld too (even if that's rapidly changing over the years, sadly). If there's one good thing about the Internet, it's the fact that nowadays it's so damn easy to listen to any radio station from around the world, rather than being limited to what's offered in your area.

One of my favorite radio stations to listen through the Internet is London's Resonance FM 104.4. Instead of ranting incoherently about what makes it so good, here's a few excerpts from their About page:

"Resonance 104.4 fm is the world’s first radio art station, established by London Musicians’ Collective."

"Its brief? To provide a radical alternative to the universal formulae of mainstream broadcasting."

"Imagine a radio station like no other. A radio station that makes public those artworks that have no place in traditional broadcasting. A radio station that is an archive of the new, the undiscovered, the forgotten, the impossible. That is an invisible gallery, a virtual arts centre whose location is at once local, global and timeless. And that is itself a work of art. Imagine a radio station that responds rapidly to new initiatives, has time to draw breath and reflect. A laboratory for experimentation, that by virtue of its uniqueness brings into being a new audience of listeners and creators."

Obviously I believe those claims, otherwise I wouldn't like the station as much as I do. Tellingly, the very first thing I listened to when I first connected to their streaming server was a very interesting interview with Isabelle Allende, which suffice to say made for a great first impression.

TL;DR version:

If you like listening to the radio, give Resonance FM a try. Chances are, you'll like it.

(Hey, an actual TL;DR version for a change!)

Thursday, July 10

[Basketball Thursday] The World Olympic Qualifiers

If there ever were a pointless tournament, the World Olympic Qualifying Tournament must be it.

Long story short, instead of having every single team qualify for the Olympic games from their respective tournaments (such as the EuroBasket ' 07 tournament), FIBA decided to make things complicated. As a result, only a handful of teams from each continent from said tournaments, while the rest are now forced to qualify through the WOQT (my own, unofficial abbreviation*).

The result is that the teams in the WOQT had to start their preparations much sooner than the rest of the teams that have already qualified for the Olympic Games, which means they'll be more fatigued. To make matters worse for the teams that will eventually qualify for the Olympic Games, they will have to play in two highly competible tournaments, and not just one. For that reason, I can't really see a team that qualified from the WOTQ to go very far in the Olympic tournament itself, fatigue will most likely be a huge factor. After all, most players are coming from full seasons, in which they got too little time to rest already. These extra games won't help one bit.

Realistically, out of the twelve teams in the tournament, only a few have decent chances of qualifying to begin with. Brazil, Greece, perhaps Germany if Dirk feels like it, Slovenia if they don't choke, perhaps Croatia and Puerto Rico too. It makes me feel like this tournament is pretty redundant, as quite a few games will probably be a blowout. Was there any real reason for twelve teams in this tournament and not eight, or perhaps less?

The obvious answer for this is the fact that then it wouldn't be considered a real tournament, and thus it couldn't be marketed as such, of course. I just can't help but feel a bit sorry for athletes when they're used like that for nothing more than money. They should be given at least one month every year to rest. I can think of players that haven't gotten more than a couple of weeks of free time in the last five years. That's borderline inhumane, in my book.

As far as the WOQT goes though, it's not all bad, at least for the Greek national team, and me as well. The good thing about this tournament is that Greece is going to host it (although I'd really like to hear what the cost for this will be), so at least our players won't have to travel to the end of the world to play these games, which should make for less fatigue. Also, a few extra games at a high level should be good for the team in general, as it's currently going through a transition.

Several players from the team that won the EuroBasket in '05 have left, with the shunning of former captain Michalis Kakiouzis standing out as particularly rude to me, so this new team will definitely need some time to adjust. The easier games in the WOQT should be of help, so long as we don't royally mess them up, in which case this whole thing will be a disaster. Most of the new players are highly talented though, so we should be fine. My only major concern is the lack of an experienced, reliable, center. Bourousis is a good player, but he's more of a tall power-forward than a real center, Big Sofo can't last for more than ten-fifteen minutes per game, and the rest of the guys are too inexperienced. A good center is almost a necessity when attacking a tight defense, 5 on 5, and that's Greece weakest point offensively, as shown in last year's EuroBasket.

We'll see, I guess. I'll definitely watch at least one or two games when the tournament starts next week, and if our level of play is high enough I might watch it all the way to the semis. You can't see me right now, but I'm crossing my fingers already.

*Isn't it funny how the word "abbreviation" is itself quite long?

TL;DR version:

Έλα μωρή Ελλαδαράααααααααα!

Wednesday, July 9

[Off-Topic Wednesday] This isn't about comics or books

My PC refused to work yesterday, for reasons of its own. Maybe it wasn't in the mood, because it's working fine today.

And since that huge-ass piece I wrote on Monday was enough for not one, but three days... Eh, I find myself not having the willpower to write anything significant today. I did see The Offspring live yesterday though, I was a huge fan of the band back in high school but I seriously lost interest in them after their Americana album. Still, I was pleasantly surprised, as they kicked ass and took names in their live gig last night, and it also helps that their latest album is actually quite good.

So here comes the inevitable music video, a live performance of Self-Esteem from... somewhere. Who cares, this was the song that made me start listening to the band, heck it was the song that made me a fan of alternative/punk rock music in general.



TL;DR version:

George doesn't want to write that article on Thor.

You Gotta Keep 'Em Separated

Monday, July 7

[Theorycraft Monday] The sequel blues

I'm feeling them alright.

I had once said that I'd be fine if all gaming franchises just disappeared and we were left with just Zelda and Castlevania. I never finished the latest Zelda game in a home console, Twilight Princess, because I felt tired of it after a while, even though it's a fantastic game. And I'm about to give up on the latest Castlevania game, Portrait of Ruin, which I picked up one year too late to begin with, exactly because I feel burnt out of this version of Castlevania. Even if I did like PoR a lot.

However, I don't want to speak about these games today, and it's common knowledge that sequels are always risky business. We complain, for example, that we never got a sequel to say, Conker's Bad Fur Day, but we always manage to find a reason to complain about the sequels we do get. And not just because they're not that different from their predecessors, like Zelda, but also when they aren't similar enough. Amusingly enough, a famous example in this category is Zelda 2: The Adventure of Link which was criticized for that exact reason. Fans. You just can't please them.

There were two games that got me thinking all this sequel stuff again. The first one was Alone in the Dark, a game that grew on me with every trailer I saw, and intrigued me with its promises of near-revolutionary game mechanics. I was never one to fall for the hype, but it truly seemed compelling. Sadly, the game itself is a real mess. The graphics are inconsistent and the animation stiff and unrealistic, the controls are horrible, the combat annoying and the camera atrocious, the story is laughable and the gameplay rather simplistic and superfluous. And don't get me started on the driving parts.

Still, I strangely enjoyed the game enough to keep my rental copy for over a week, and I have to say I loved its presentation. It doesn't matter if the things the characters said were shit, the way it was presented to us was really impressive. Plus, you can't fault the game for being ambitious, even if it doesn't quite live up to those ambitions. Not to mention, and this is an important part for me, the people behind this game seemed honest in their intentions with trying to provide a quality product, this wasn't just a cynical cash-in.

(This doesn't include the PS2 and Wii versions of the game, which are as I'm told complete and utter cynical cash-ins).

This is the part where things get complicated, though. I understand the people of Eden Entertainment wanted this to be a good, perhaps even revolutionary, game. But did they really intended it to be a good Alone in the Dark game? Many people have said it's a departure because it's not a survival horror game. I don't subscribe to the idea that the first three games of the franchise were what we call survival horror games either. They were certainly the main influence behind the first Resident Evil, which in turn spawned a zillion clones, but at their core, they were still adventure games, with action elements.

Yes, there were a lot of combat scenes in all three AitD games, but as a purely gameplay mechanic they were superficial at best. If nothing else, as the Greek reviewer Andreas Tsourinakis showed in his review of Alone in the Dark 2 way back when, the fight scenes were so poorly designed, you could find a way to glitch every enemy in the game and never get hit. Combat was more of an after thought in these games, and you never had the problem with conserving ammo, as in a real survival horror game. I would argue that the presence of enemies in these games was nothing more than a plot mechanic, to add to the tension and suspense, and not to make them into action games. After all, all three games had several difficult, and rather ingenious, puzzles in them.

Ironically enough, the fourth game which I've avoided mentioning so far, The New Nightmare, was a Resident Evil clone itself, only with deeper puzzles (which weren't on the same level as the previous games though) and pretenses at a more serious storyline. Sadly, both its gameplay and its story collapsed near the end, with one scene at the very end especially standing out as both a very dumb final puzzle and one of the most anticlimactic cut-scenes ever. On top of this, and this was a first in the series, the game had no connections to its predecessors whatsoever, and even though its main character was still a man called Edward Camby, he had apparently no connection to the man from the first three names. Not even a distand great-grandson.

Despite the lack of success for The New Nightmare, which tried to reinvent the series (notable by the lack of a "4" in the title, after all), Eden decided to um, re-re-invent the series with the latest Alone in the Dark game. The fact that it shares the same name as the game that started it all, with no numbers and no secondary titles, could imply that they were in fact trying to reboot the whole series. A fact that would explain the vast change of setting, cast and timeline, even when compared to The New Nightmare, but then they had to make the original Edward Camby from the 1920's the protagonist again. How he managed to survive all this years and still look so young is indeed explained in the game, in an unintentionally hilarious moment, which will have you looking for your tinfoil hat.

And that's my main problem with the game. The new Alone in the Dark fails as a survival horror game because it doesn't provide with enough tension and it just isn't scary enough, as most of its scenes that are supposed to stand out are horribly scripted in the most formulaic of manners. It also fails as an action game, or at least a hybrid action game, because the controls are unintuitive and unwieldy, and the driving sections are poorly thought out. It also fails as an adventure game, because whatever puzzles are in the game aren't exactly that clever, not to mention that they are horribly limited and fire is usually the solution to every predicament. Man, if only Prometheus could see this game, he would feel so proud.

But my main problem with this game is that it fails as an Alone in the Dark game. AitD was never about vast conspiracies (a sin commited by both recent AitD games) and obscure plots that are trying too hard. The antagonists in AitD weren't bug-looking enemies that would never scare you even if they appeared behind you while you were watching Stanley Kubric's The Shinning, all alone in an abandoned hotel. And they certainly weren't, gods forbid, "Vampirz"*. AitD was never about setting fire on everything near you, or driving around, looking for an excuse to do a jump with your car accompanied by a bullet time effect.

No, the AitD games of old, the good ones, were about clever puzzles, intense, scary atmosphere and campy, yet also simple and honest storylines. Surely, the times were different and much more simple back then, but it's a risky business when developers try to completely abandon a game's roots and reinvent it from scratch. It rarely works, and in the case of Eden Entertainment and Alone in the Dark, it really didn't.

I guess what I've been trying to say here is, why not make this a completely new IP? That way they wouldn't have to deal with problems such as explaining why the protagonist is nearly 100 years old and yet looks 40, nor would they have to deal with annoyed fanboys. I doubt the name itself was a factor that would make this game a mainstream hit, as the last Alone in the Dark game came out seven years ago, and the one before it, thirteen whole years. Now if this was truly, honestly, the direction they wanted to take the series, rather than just tying up a familiar name around an experimental game... Then they should simply stop doing drugs, as some twists only work for Dude, where's my car?

Whoa, long post. I'll mention Street Fighter 4 briefly then, and come back to it later if necessary. The question of just how much is too much comes again to my mind when looking at what we know about this game. We know for a fact that it's more of a sequel to Street Fighter 2 and not Street Fighter 3, as far as both characters and mechanics go, and that's kind of a bummer for people like me who love both games. In fact, I'm still playing both and Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo and Street Fighter 3: 3rd Strike. They're both good, but the evolution was already there. Why ignore SF3 completely? It just sounds... rude. And then there is this apparent rumor that Gouken, brother of Gouki/Akuma and teacher to Ryu and Ken is going to be in the game... And we're getting in "too much" territory, as I'm starting to feel that this game could be simply something to satisfy the die-hard fans of SF 2, fanservice if you will, and not a real step forward, like SF3 was.

Or, you know, I could be paranoid and should take off the tinfoil hat I've been wearing since I returned AitD. At any rate, the recent animated teaser trailer for SF4 was nothing short of fantastic, even if the artwork is a bit suspect -then again this is just a teaser, and in fact reminded me of some of the best scenes of the SF animated movie. That, and the orchestral remix of Ryu's theme is pure SEX.

I'll stop talking now, here's the trailer:



*Yes, Vampirz.

VAMPIRZ

WHO COMES UP WITH THESE THINGS?

TL;DR version:

Capcom better not fuck up Street Fighter 4, or I'll have to write an even longer post.

I enjoyed The New Nightmare for what it was, though. At least in that game the controls worked. Hell, I enjoyed the latest game too. Just not as much as I would have wanted to.

It is funny, however, Edward Camby is supposed to be the exact same person as in the first games, and presumably he should look the same as well, perhaps without the 1920's moustache. Yet most of the time he doesn't even look like the same guy from the cover of this very game. Wish I could find a good in-game shot, but google is failing me.