V – Episode 3 (Season 1): “A Bright New Day”
The title of this episode gives me bad memories, if only because it’s incredibly similar to the Brand New Day storyline from the Spider Man comics in recent years. Thankfully, it’s much, much less idiotic. In fact, this episode was rather enjoyable.
Things are actually going underway in this episode, as the resistance is formed at the end of the episode. The fact that it is only four people who can ostensibly barely make a dent in the V’s plans notwithstanding, it makes me hopeful that the series won’t fall into the tired routine other TV series such as Smallville or Heroes falls into – either dropping plot points entirely or focusing on inane storytelling methods so much that people just don’t care anymore. This episode also digs the V’s claws deeper and deeper into the ‘irredeemable monsters’ visage, as their manipulative and deceptive qualities are revealed. I’m rather disappointed that Chad Decker didn’t get as much screen time this episode, as his information war with the Vs was a welcome change from the Resistance storyline.
All in all, a pretty decent episode, as things are shaping up nicely and it seems that the series will be chugging along at a nice pace; here’s hoping it doesn’t get too full of itself.
Weekend Game Review: Call of Duty – Modern Warfare 2 (Multi)
Posted by Ashton in Video Games on November 12th, 2009
While the media debates the issue of games being ‘harmful’ or ‘poisonous’ to people’s minds, it never speaks of the creative capacity of the medium, as well as its capacity to incite an emotional as well as an intellectual reaction from its audience. While the media is busy lynching its latest scapegoat, it unsurprisingly refuses to acknowledge that games have a significant capacity for sending messages. Modern Warfare 2 sends a clear and simple message: War is brutal. War is ugly. War has consequences.
It hits home on a number of missions. One of which involves the player character going undercover and being forced to mow down unarmed civilians with a powerful assault rifle. It’s unsettling and disturbing, and as I watched a nameless civilian attempt to carry an injured man to safety, only to be mowed down himself by one of my “allies,” I felt a sick feeling in my stomach. In another mission, I rappel down from a cliff and kill a guard with my knife. I can see his face as he dies, while his eyes frozen in horror melts away into a dead, blank stare as the life drains out of him. The game pulls no punches, and unflinchingly shows the most horrible consequences that war has on us: not the loss of our lives, but the loss of our humanity, which is something infinitely more terrifying. Of course this will be lost on most of the gamer population who think of themselves as REAL HARD MEN who scream “YEAH I’M KILLING CIVVIES YEAHHH” or “Who cares, they’re just pixels on a screen.” The subtleties of any narrative are lost on these neanderthals.
Still, there’s a game underneath the layers of story, and while not much has changed from Call of Duty 4, it has a great deal more variety. You can find yourself engaged in a stealth operation one mission, then rooftop hopping to escape from an angry mob the next. The game literally has no missions where you can rest, as every mission thrusts you waist deep into the action. Certain missions are almost chilling in their depiction of war, especially those set in the U.S. Spec Ops is damn good, as it includes a multiplayer that does not involve killing other players and instead focuses on coop, which I enjoy a lot more (I got more out of Horde Mode in Gears of War 2 than Versus). It recreates some instances of the game, while others are completely new scenarios to tackles for those who have finished the Campaign. The Campaign itself is brief – almost too brief, as I was able to finish in about 5 or 6 hours on Veteran difficulty, but regardless, it was an incredibly experience.
The graphics use the same engine as Call of Duty 4, so it’s nothing too revolutionary, but it’s nothing to sneeze at either; it’s still a great looking game, and has no slowdown even with the myriad (sometimes dozens) of enemies on screen at once. The musical score is incredible, and it supplements each mission and scenario incredibly well, making for what is probably the most immersive game I’ve played this year.
The Good
+ Strong story with powerful emotional impact
+ Phenomenal score to enhance the experience
+ Large amount of mission variety (both within the campaign and Spec Ops)
+ Excellent graphics and weapon realism
The Bad
- Scenario clocks in at around 5 to 6 hours … on Veteran. A bit too short.
- Lag is (as of this writing) really bad, though it is like to clear up in the coming months.
- Online Versus is still incredibly newbie-unfriendly. Uninitiated players will be slaughtered endlessly.
The WTF
?! The general response to the ‘offensive material’ in the game, from the media and gamers alike.
V – Episode 2 (Season 1): “There is No Normal Anymore”
Posted by Ashton in Television on November 12th, 2009
If episode 1 set the structure, then episode 2 begins to solidify the series. It takes place directly after the end of the first episode, and we really get to see how the characters are reacting to their new found discovery. Some try to ignore it, others are unsure what to do, still others decide to continue resisting, but by the end of the episode they end up thinking the same thing anyway, to start a resistance … which is odd because that was the same thing they decided at the end of the last episode, too.
What this episode does well is show how distrustful the characters are now that they know the truth of the matter, and it leads to some of them making irrational or unwise decisions. The acting and dialogue is still pretty wooden to me, honestly. I’m interested, surprisingly, in Chad Decker’s story and development most of all, due to his ignorance of the truth yet incapability of yielding to the Visitors. The other characters evolve in predictable directions (FBI Agent, Priest, Visitor turncoat are all pretty stock when it comes down to it), but his character seems to be developing in the most interesting direction, probably because he’s the one who has the most interaction with the Visitors.
I’m thoroughly uninterested and unimpressed with any scenes that involve Logan Huffman. It’s nothing to do with his acting, but his character’s story is boring, pedestrian, and worst of all, annoying. The whole teenage subplot in the context of a show about alien invasion is completely absurd, and though I’m aware that it’ll eventually lead to him becoming an unknowing sleeper spy for the Visitors (if the show synopsis is to be believed), his storyline for the foreseeable future seems to involve him doing stupid teenage things. I’m half expecting him to get high in the next episode.
Not a bad episode, and the ending shows promise of potential story twists, but the show has still not realized its potential yet. We can only hope it will get better.
Weekend Game Review: Lost Odyssey (Xbox 360)
Posted by Ashton in Video Games on November 8th, 2009
I finally beat Lost Odyssey this past weekend, over a year after its release. I stopped playing about half a year ago halfway into disc 3, then only recently picked it back up and continued. The reasons for my doing so were threefold. First of all, the battle system is slow as molasses, which is irritating because Lost Odyssey operates on a random-encounter type system, and escaping from battle is difficult as hell, so every time the screen flashed into that battle transition, I prepared myself for a 3 to 5 minute battle. This may not sound that bad, but picture doing it all throughout a dungeon. It would drive you nuts. Though, if the story were any good, I would’ve been convinced to suffer through the battle system, which leads me to my second complaint.
The story is absolutely insufferable – and this is largely due to the stupidly obligatory child characters that every JRPG just has to have. One of the main story events involves the two kids hijacking a train in the hopes of seeing their dead mother (yeah, you read that right – I don’t get it either). You then have to catch another train to go after them and stop them from doing something stupid. Of course, if the adults were doing their job then this wouldn’t have happened in the first place, but I guess common sense is lacking in JRPG worlds. There are child characters who are characterized excellently and that I personally actually like: Lymsleia from Suikoden V immediately comes to mind, as does Nanako from Persona 4. Even Karol from Tales of Vesperia can be likable thanks to his gung ho attitude. This disappoints me mainly because the story started off really great, then dropped like a rock from the side of the Grand Canyon when Cooke and Mack (the aforementioned child characters) were introduced. Fortunately their roles are downplayed near the end of the game, where the story picks up steam again, so it gets good, but it never gets great.
Another thing I found disappointing was the skill mechanic; the immortals can learn any skill they want, but all of them are shuffled into specific roles, with Kaim and Seth being physical attackers and Sarah and Ming being mages. Having a largely customizable skill/abilities list for the immortals serves no purpose if I can’t do what I want with them. Besides that, once they get enough abilities they become so powerful that there’s no real reason to use any of the mortals as anything other than cannon fodder, because they just don’t measure up.
Still, it’s not a total loss. The 1000 Years of Dreams sequences included in the game are great. Each of them convey the frailty of life as well as how the horrors of war can warp people; if the main storyline was written in this method then perhaps it would’ve succeeded. Instead it was generic JRPG tripe. Ah, what could have been…
The Good
+ The Thousand Years of Dreams vignettes are wonderfully written and incredibly well translated.
+ The graphics are pretty good and doesn’t require five minute long effects in order to show it.
+ Robust skill/equipment system allows players to customize characters for any situation.’
The Bad
- The music is surprisingly pedestrian, and a weak effort from Nobuo Uematsu
- The story, in stark contrast to the vignettes, is bland and uninspired.
- The battle system is way too slow, making random encounters drag on and on.
- Characters are cast in one of two specific, unchangeable roles: fighter or mage.
The WTF
?! Random encounters? Really?
?! Cooke and Mack. What were they thinking?
V – Episode 1 (Season 1): “Pilot”
Posted by Ashton in Television on November 5th, 2009
Let me get this out of the way first: I never watched the original V TV series. It was before my time. I have heard good things about it, and wanted to check it out (and I still plan on it … someday), but for now I’ve started watching the remake.
It was a good watch, and the show is well worth the time, but falls back too much on formulaic storytelling. From the start of the Pilot to the end, there’s nothing at all that will catch anybody that’s seen, well, any TV show or movie, off guard. The method by which the different character’s storylines are tied together by the end of the episode is done beautifully, and I suppose that that was the entire point of the episode – to lay down the infrastructure for future episodes. At this the episode succeeds marvelously.
The episode opens with the mundane lives of normal people on their normal everyday routine when alien ships fly over 29 major cities in the world, causing mass panic. Then, a few moments later, the Visitors make an open declaration of peace, causing mass joy (and later, mass protests). The episode centers on individuals who aren’t entirely sure that the Visitors are evil, but don’t exactly trust their motives to be entirely benevolent either. At least one of the characters already knows they’re evil from the start, and the others find out by the end one way or another, and the episode ends just as they begin to plan a resistance. I can already say that I’m going to be annoyed by the character Logan Huffman is playing – kids with daddy/mommy issues are the most annoying kind of archetypes. The dialogue is clichéd, but any problems it had are made up by the actors themselves.
Anyway, it’s to early to be judging the series as a whole as some reviewers are saying (have we learned nothing from Heroes?), and it’s definitely not the best pilot episode I’ve ever seen (that honor would belong to House). But it’s still a great opening episode and I’m looking forward to seeing how the rest of the season will shape up.
Heroes – Episode 8 (Season 4): “Once Upon a Time in Texas” – A Medical Review
Posted by Ashton in Television on November 5th, 2009
I’ve been a viewer of Heroes since the first season, and it’s been going downhill for a while now – though, this latest episode (Once Upon A Time In Texas) is the best in a while, mainly because Hiro stopped acting like a moron. Thanks, Heroes writers! Anyway, the latest episode deals with Hiro’s attempts to save his one true love (Sorry, Yaeko from season 2! You were just a fluke!), Charlie, from being killed by Sylar, the ‘brain man.’ Anyway, he succeeds, but Charlie has an aneurysm (thinning of the blood vessel walls due to blockage of blood) caused by a blood clot in her brain. As a last ditch effort, Hiro gets Sylar to ‘fix’ Charlie, and this involves Sylar telekinetically crushing the blood clot and draining it out of Charlie’s tear duct.
Now, depending on where the blood clot is, this can range from being completely absurd to somewhat plausible… but only somewhat. The bigger problem here is that the aneurysm had already ruptured. Right after Sylar took out the clot, Charlie’s back up and about as if nothing happened. Uh – she still has a blood vessel spilling blood into her brain! This is called an intracerebral hemorrhage. This is not a good thing! Charlie should be at a hospital instead of prancing around and getting pissed at Hiro.
And so it begins…
I’ve read my own share of blogs, and I figured I might as well work on one myself, just to pass some time and to give my thoughts on a few things. It’s not anything special or awesome, just a medium where I can share thoughts on a variety of subjects such as games, television, movies, and (sometimes) medicine.
