**CONTAINS GAME OF THRONES SPOILERS**
Since The Last Jedi came out (a movie which, in my opinion, is terribly flawed and has awful writing throughout) it's become extremely popular for creators and fandoms to defend writing in shows and films with "It's great at subverting audience expectations! You just hate it because you weren't expecting those things to happen!"
With the release of Season 8 of Game of Thrones and the awful massacre of that show's story and characters, it seems like people are jumping on this same bandwagon. "But it was so subversive!"
The idea, it would seem, is that writing is great merely by virtue of having unexpected things happen. If the audience is surprised with something you did as a writer, you are inherently a genius and your scripts are fantastic.
I'm going to be blunt.
This is a complete fallacy and the people using this reasoning are completely intellectually bankrupt when it comes to telling a good story.
Honestly, this whole line of reasoning is pure unadulterated nonsense.
Imagine you're watching Pulp Fiction. Marsellus Wallace is talking to Butch about throwing the boxing match. Suddenly, his head violently and gorily explodes everywhere and Willis reels in shock.
Cut to next scene. Vincent has just saved Mia from OD'ing. He takes her back to the house, smiles, and then he pulls out his pistol and shoots her dead.
Final scene. Travolta and Jackson are in the restaurant. Roth and Plummer talk about robbing the place, reach for their guns...and then decide that actually, no they won't. They just walk out, roll credits.
All three of these scenes are examples of completely subverting an audience's expectations. We don't expect Wallace's head to explode with no foreshadowing or apparent reasoning. We don't expect Vincent to randomly murder Mia, and we don't expect a robbery set-up from the start of the movie to suddenly lead to absolutely nothing.
Did these changes feel satisfying? Does it make absolutely any sense that Wallace suddenly just dies? Why would the film set up the cafe robbery for the whole run-time and then just ignore it in such a frustrating way?
No, these three examples are examples of terrible writing and would render Pulp Fiction an awful film. The expectations of the audience are "subverted" in these examples purely out of laziness or the desire to be "shocking" and unexpected. This destroys the story.
By contrast, there is actually a scene in Pulp Fiction in which a character's head suddenly explodes, subverting our expectations. However, this scene is both funny and horrifying, and is subtly foreshadowed in the form of Vincent's incompetence throughout the whole story. It also leads to a major plot dilemma which the characters successfully resolve using logic.
To cut a long explanation short; this character's sudden and "subversive" death is clever. It's not a stupid subversion for the sake of it.
Subverting an audience's expectations is not inherently bad.
But doing it out of laziness, out of stupidity or out of simply forgetting key plot points is not good writing.
Game of Thrones Season 8 is a perfect example of the worst, laziest, most idiotic "subversion". Jon Snow is set up for the entire show as a Targaryen - it's a huge reveal that means he is the rightful King of Westeros.
This is massive. This is a show all about the throne of this Kingdom and people scheming to sit on it. Jon is a protagonist we have followed right from the very beginning and is the favourite character for many people (myself included). He is revealed as the man who should be King, by right of his blood.
Yet in Season 8, Jon is suddenly meek, timid, weak, repetitive and stupid. And worse, his entire backstory and his heritage is completely ignored. The writers end the show by just giving him...nothing. He's pointless.
Arguably the biggest main character in the show becomes utterly redundant, his claim to the Kingdom is completely glossed over and he's basically deleted from the script. Instead, total randomer Bran becomes King for...no real reason whatsoever.
This is inexcusably terrible writing. To utterly ignore a central character's entire arc that you have been building for 8 seasons of television to this one incredibly important moment purely to "subvert expectations" is moronic beyond belief, not the sign of scriptwriting genius.
To round up:
Anyone can write a totally "random" story which ignores Chekhov's Gun and in which expected pay-offs are completely ignored in favour of "unexpected" twists. Children often write extremely simplistic stories like this, because they don't understand writing conventions. Does that mean children are excellent screenwriters now?
Subverting expectations in and of itself is not a mark of an excellent writer.
Showing posts with label Rants. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Rants. Show all posts
Tuesday, 4 June 2019
Friday, 1 October 2010
Movie review: The Day After Tomorrow
After enjoying Collateral in my last review, it makes sense that it couldn't last and I've now seen a film I loathe!
I have seen The Day After Tomorrow perhaps 4-5 times. This is not out of choice, but because (for perplexing reasons I can't fathom) it is on TV about every 2 weeks. Nothing else is on when it's on either.
Let's get one thing straight from the start: I am not "trendy" when it comes to Global Warming, which is what this film claims to be about.
(Global Warming rant here. If you want to skip, move down second dashed line!)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I accept there is a problem, yes, and I believe we should closely monitor it. I also believe mankind should attempt to be eco-friendly as much as is possible while maintaining efficiency.
However, I don't believe this scaremongering crap that has been so popular lately - that we are going to be the "tipping point" with our CO2 emissions.
Why? Well, when one huge-arse volcano can erupt at any time and totally dwarf the CO2 emissions of the entire Human race, I tend to think this talk of Human tipping points is ludicrous. Include underwater volcanos we don't even know about and the fact that geysers are always spewing crap out (plus the gases emitted when tectonic plates shift) and we start to look less and less significant.
Scientific evidence for this "human factor" theory is also weak, and this is what really annoys me. Take the leaked emails from East Anglia's Climate Research Unit, which announced that "[we] must suppress the level of change" - I.E. no significant evidence to point to human-caused climate change, but the Unit wanted to cover it up. That's great ethical science right there!
There is a cult-like mentality (ingrained in many self-righteous individuals I have met personally) that we are killing the planet with CO2, and the science is being bent to fulfill this political agenda. Science is there to present an empirical, quantitative truth, but sadly with GW that one goal seems to be obfuscated completely.
The way half of this stuff is presented is really more like religious zeal than factual evidence.
The Government loves these types of smug fanatics and this kind of perversion of science. Up taxes, and people actually agree with it! Perfect!
This is all compounded by the fearmongering adverts put out by the government and climate change groups. I remember seeing one recently aimed at children, which announced that "scientists" (got to love generalisation) have told everyone that we're all going to get screwed soon by it. Then we see images of animals and people drowning, and kids crying.
Another I saw showed a tearful young girl being teleported to an arid desert, and then being nearly killed by huge tidal waves. Then a stark voice boomed out about CO2 emissions. What scientific references did the ad make use of? None, naturally. Just a whole load of fear-spreading bull.
Now, one of the most "GW-active" people I know pretty much sums up the whole mentality. He owned 8 phones at one point recently, and must change to a new phone model once every couple of months. He also owned two laptops and a desktop computer.
I presently have one laptop, one desktop, and one cheap phone. According to this guy, I was a "materialist". I almost choked laughing! Similarly, he announced on his FB that "flying is immoral", strangely after he broke up with his overseas partner, who he was previously flying out to every 5-6 months.
I haven't been on a plane for about 8 years.
Yet this guy is THE Eco-Warrior™. It's amazing, simply incredible...but he sees himself as some kind of enlightened saviour of the planet, and naturally is a great big fan of the more baseless scaremongering ads and campaigns.
He has no idea of the science, as demonstrated in his poor reasoning over energy efficiency and countless other eco-related areas, but hey, he's a GW crusader, so logic and hypocrisy be damned!
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(Review resumed)
Well, basically TDAT layers on the GW theme thick. Chokingly thick. The protaganist is a super-enlightened scientist who suddenly realises the world will end due to climate change in a couple of days.
Naturally the politicians are all idiots and refuse to listen, and the film just keeps piling on the smug lecturing. "If only they had listened earlier!" is a common expression, often followed by a saddened headshake or a melodramatic kneading of the forehead.
Yes, we're stupid for not subscribing to the CO2 tipping point craze. We get it. We don't need any more patronising bollocks, thank you very much. Oh wait, we're going to get it anyway. Cheers!
Anyway, the film goes through every disaster movie cliche in the book. Tsunamis, ice storms (which somehow freeze low-flying military helicopters but not the protaganist's car. He must have an Eco-Warrior™ Shield. I wonder how much CO2 it takes to keep that thing rocking) and all other sorts of stuff.
Everyone except the Enlightened Few act like brainless tossers and generally die. There is a "brave sacrifice by cutting my climbing rope" scene that you see in every film ever to feature climbing ropes.
There are some truly laughable scenes, such as when a group of survivors successfully outrun a skyscraper-sized tsunami, or (my personal favourite) when they run away from the weather!
That's right, the building they're in freezes behind them amd they run away from the ice as it materialises in seconds behind them. Futhermore, they "shut out" this bizarre demonic freezing agent by shutting a door.
Ell-Oh-Ell.
So yeah, cliched, stale disaster movie with syrupy coverings of very biased Global Warming preachiness, this is one of the most tiresome films I have seen for a while.
Final Word:
Plot is gusty with heavy showers of smug. Extremely dangerous conditions, do not stay indoors, leave the house if neccessary!
1/5.
[*] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ]
Also, because it's perfect (and you suffered my rant):
Watch 'til the end for big lols ;)
I have seen The Day After Tomorrow perhaps 4-5 times. This is not out of choice, but because (for perplexing reasons I can't fathom) it is on TV about every 2 weeks. Nothing else is on when it's on either.
Let's get one thing straight from the start: I am not "trendy" when it comes to Global Warming, which is what this film claims to be about.
(Global Warming rant here. If you want to skip, move down second dashed line!)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I accept there is a problem, yes, and I believe we should closely monitor it. I also believe mankind should attempt to be eco-friendly as much as is possible while maintaining efficiency.
However, I don't believe this scaremongering crap that has been so popular lately - that we are going to be the "tipping point" with our CO2 emissions.
Why? Well, when one huge-arse volcano can erupt at any time and totally dwarf the CO2 emissions of the entire Human race, I tend to think this talk of Human tipping points is ludicrous. Include underwater volcanos we don't even know about and the fact that geysers are always spewing crap out (plus the gases emitted when tectonic plates shift) and we start to look less and less significant.
Scientific evidence for this "human factor" theory is also weak, and this is what really annoys me. Take the leaked emails from East Anglia's Climate Research Unit, which announced that "[we] must suppress the level of change" - I.E. no significant evidence to point to human-caused climate change, but the Unit wanted to cover it up. That's great ethical science right there!
There is a cult-like mentality (ingrained in many self-righteous individuals I have met personally) that we are killing the planet with CO2, and the science is being bent to fulfill this political agenda. Science is there to present an empirical, quantitative truth, but sadly with GW that one goal seems to be obfuscated completely.
The way half of this stuff is presented is really more like religious zeal than factual evidence.
The Government loves these types of smug fanatics and this kind of perversion of science. Up taxes, and people actually agree with it! Perfect!
This is all compounded by the fearmongering adverts put out by the government and climate change groups. I remember seeing one recently aimed at children, which announced that "scientists" (got to love generalisation) have told everyone that we're all going to get screwed soon by it. Then we see images of animals and people drowning, and kids crying.
Another I saw showed a tearful young girl being teleported to an arid desert, and then being nearly killed by huge tidal waves. Then a stark voice boomed out about CO2 emissions. What scientific references did the ad make use of? None, naturally. Just a whole load of fear-spreading bull.
Now, one of the most "GW-active" people I know pretty much sums up the whole mentality. He owned 8 phones at one point recently, and must change to a new phone model once every couple of months. He also owned two laptops and a desktop computer.
I presently have one laptop, one desktop, and one cheap phone. According to this guy, I was a "materialist". I almost choked laughing! Similarly, he announced on his FB that "flying is immoral", strangely after he broke up with his overseas partner, who he was previously flying out to every 5-6 months.
I haven't been on a plane for about 8 years.
Yet this guy is THE Eco-Warrior™. It's amazing, simply incredible...but he sees himself as some kind of enlightened saviour of the planet, and naturally is a great big fan of the more baseless scaremongering ads and campaigns.
He has no idea of the science, as demonstrated in his poor reasoning over energy efficiency and countless other eco-related areas, but hey, he's a GW crusader, so logic and hypocrisy be damned!
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(Review resumed)
Well, basically TDAT layers on the GW theme thick. Chokingly thick. The protaganist is a super-enlightened scientist who suddenly realises the world will end due to climate change in a couple of days.
Naturally the politicians are all idiots and refuse to listen, and the film just keeps piling on the smug lecturing. "If only they had listened earlier!" is a common expression, often followed by a saddened headshake or a melodramatic kneading of the forehead.
Yes, we're stupid for not subscribing to the CO2 tipping point craze. We get it. We don't need any more patronising bollocks, thank you very much. Oh wait, we're going to get it anyway. Cheers!
Anyway, the film goes through every disaster movie cliche in the book. Tsunamis, ice storms (which somehow freeze low-flying military helicopters but not the protaganist's car. He must have an Eco-Warrior™ Shield. I wonder how much CO2 it takes to keep that thing rocking) and all other sorts of stuff.
Everyone except the Enlightened Few act like brainless tossers and generally die. There is a "brave sacrifice by cutting my climbing rope" scene that you see in every film ever to feature climbing ropes.
There are some truly laughable scenes, such as when a group of survivors successfully outrun a skyscraper-sized tsunami, or (my personal favourite) when they run away from the weather!
That's right, the building they're in freezes behind them amd they run away from the ice as it materialises in seconds behind them. Futhermore, they "shut out" this bizarre demonic freezing agent by shutting a door.
Ell-Oh-Ell.
So yeah, cliched, stale disaster movie with syrupy coverings of very biased Global Warming preachiness, this is one of the most tiresome films I have seen for a while.
Final Word:
Plot is gusty with heavy showers of smug. Extremely dangerous conditions, do not stay indoors, leave the house if neccessary!
1/5.
[*] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ]
Also, because it's perfect (and you suffered my rant):
Watch 'til the end for big lols ;)
Sunday, 19 September 2010
Mirror's Edge - Plot Grievances
*Contains major spoilers.*
So, I just finished quickly replaying Mirror's Edge, and I thought to do the game justice, I would briefly go over why exactly the story creates such a frustrating experience for me.
There were two main things that annoyed me:
A: Overuse of animated cutscenes. They muddle the plot considerably.
B: Important plot points left hanging in mid air.
Plot Irritant 1 - "The Assassin Plotline" ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
To quickly summarise, the main character, Faith, has a sister, Kate, who is framed by shady forces for killing a mayoral candidate (the "good" candidate who wanted to reverse the evil regime. Blah blah.).
Now, you spend about 3/4 of the game trying to find out who killed him to help out Kate, including multiple levels where you chase an athletic masked figure, who later is revealed to be the assassin.
This assassin turns out to be a close friend of Faith, a fellow Runner named Celeste who became a traitor.
Okay, I'm thinking, the scene is set for some kind of real, concrete resolution of that plot point now, right? Well, it would seem so. You grab Celeste's gun and have an extended martial arts fight at the end of one level. It ends with you pinning her to the floor.
That's when things turn weird. Apparently the developers didn't think this was dramatic enough.
Suddenly the game cuts to an animated cutscene, which abruptly shows Celeste wriggling free and stumbling away. Again. Then Faith magically appears in front of her (?!) apparently being faster now that she's beaten Cel up a bit. Regardless Cel suddenly produces a second handgun from her belt (Wtf? She can just summon guns from air?) and threatens Faith.
Then bad guys arrive and begin shooting at them both (the same bad guys Cel works for...riiight), allowing Faith to grab the gun and kill them in a ridiculous explosion. Then, as the smoke clears, Faith walks off, dropping the gun, and Cel is nowhere to be seen. Faith doesn't comment on this, she just mutters that she's off to save her sister, and the guy on the radio to her says that he "heard all [he] needed to."
And that's all that's mentioned of Cel. Presumably they're keeping her as a villain in the sequel or something, but seriously...3/4 of the game devoted to catching her, then she just vanishes? And in an extremely lame way, with none of the characters being at all interested in finally finishing her off? Sigh. Welcome to Mirror's Edge, where things don't have to make sense!
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Plot Irritant 2 - The Schizophrenic Police Lieutenant
This one's simple. There's a CPF (the original "good" city police) officer named Miller who through the whole game alternates every animated cutscene or two between helping you and being a dick.
In one (pointlessly animated) cutscene, he arranges to meet Faith, and then jams a gun in her face while talking. In another, he is seen talking with a major bad guy. Then, at the end of the game, he shoots two mercs attacking you and suddenly goes massively out of his way to help you.
I guess they did this to keep the player guessing, but it ended up making me so unsure of his character that I just wanted him to help out or die.
Obviously the same writer who worked on Cel finished this part of the plot - we never even get to know what happened to him, we just hear an ambiguous gunshot as he talks mid-sentence over the radio. Then we don't hear from him again.
Anotherclassy cliffhanger bloody annoying ending!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Plot Irritant 3 - The Absolutely Ludicrous Ending
This is by far the most bemusing part of the game. Kate is to be executed, and the bad guys also want Faith dead.
So naturally, when the last major baddie has Kate at gunpoint, and Faith at his mercy, he kills both of them.
Wait sorry, that would make sense, what am I thinking?!. No, what I meant to say, is he doesn't do anything except talk for ages! Yeah, that's more like it.
Then he bundles Kate onto a chopper (which is going to Loltown or something. It's never explained) and a load of SWAT guys with machineguns run up behind the unarmed Faith.
What happens next? Well, the bad guy says something cheesy like "Sometimes you have to jump Faith." He then starts shooting at Faith from the hovering Chopper, and the 4-5 SWAT guys also begin shooting.
Why he didn't shoot earlier doesn't matter, and neither does the fact that Faith can dodge 5 machineguns at once from about two metres away. She's FAITH!11one!
Anyway, then the "WTF" factor is suddenly dialled to 5000. Faith leaps into the helicopter (which is about 1-2 metres off of the roof) and kicks the big bad out of it to his death. Then the helicopter starts to crash because the SWAT guys' bullets hit it (lol) and so Faith grabs her sister and throws her out (o_0).
Then Faith leaps out of the chopper, which is spinning at about 400 miles per hour, and lands on the roof as it blows up. She then hugs her sister, and the two stare out at the city as the camera zooms out and soft music starts.
Processed all that yet? No, I haven't either!
In the review I mentioned a stupid deus ex machina ("from nowhere") plot resolution. What was that? Well, remember those SWAT guys firing hundreds of bullets seconds ago from the roof? When Faith and Kate hug on the roof as the chopper blows up, they're suddenly gone.
That's right, a whole squad of gun-toting bad guys about to kill the heroines all just cease to exist in the ending moments of the game with no explanation at all. What. The. Crap.
Plot Irritant 4 - What was the point? --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
So the game ends with a logic-defying ending, two major characters with totally unknown fates, and the radio guy who helps you all game (Mercury) dead in a brief animated cutscene.
Mercury was quite possibly the one no-BS, fully-developed character in the game that I rooted for, other than Faith herself. And he gets shot off-screen and dies in a 20 second long piece of abrupt animation.
The last thing he says is "No 'sorrys', Faith. Just don't let them win."
From that quote I assumed the end of the game would have Faith bringing the evil government crashing down, or liberating the city, or some massive event of vengeance. Instead she saves her sister, disappears a SWAT team with magic, and that's about it. Evil empire lives. City doesn't change. Merc is unavenged. Half the cast has vanished.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
So if anyone is actually still reading after this extended rant, I think really my overwhelming feeling is of disappointment. ME is a game that really feels great in places, but it's like somewhere things got cut out or rushed, and the last half or so of the story got thrown together as a result.
Gameplay videos coming soon.
So, I just finished quickly replaying Mirror's Edge, and I thought to do the game justice, I would briefly go over why exactly the story creates such a frustrating experience for me.
There were two main things that annoyed me:
A: Overuse of animated cutscenes. They muddle the plot considerably.
B: Important plot points left hanging in mid air.
Plot Irritant 1 - "The Assassin Plotline" ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
To quickly summarise, the main character, Faith, has a sister, Kate, who is framed by shady forces for killing a mayoral candidate (the "good" candidate who wanted to reverse the evil regime. Blah blah.).
Now, you spend about 3/4 of the game trying to find out who killed him to help out Kate, including multiple levels where you chase an athletic masked figure, who later is revealed to be the assassin.
This assassin turns out to be a close friend of Faith, a fellow Runner named Celeste who became a traitor.
Okay, I'm thinking, the scene is set for some kind of real, concrete resolution of that plot point now, right? Well, it would seem so. You grab Celeste's gun and have an extended martial arts fight at the end of one level. It ends with you pinning her to the floor.
That's when things turn weird. Apparently the developers didn't think this was dramatic enough.
Suddenly the game cuts to an animated cutscene, which abruptly shows Celeste wriggling free and stumbling away. Again. Then Faith magically appears in front of her (?!) apparently being faster now that she's beaten Cel up a bit. Regardless Cel suddenly produces a second handgun from her belt (Wtf? She can just summon guns from air?) and threatens Faith.
Then bad guys arrive and begin shooting at them both (the same bad guys Cel works for...riiight), allowing Faith to grab the gun and kill them in a ridiculous explosion. Then, as the smoke clears, Faith walks off, dropping the gun, and Cel is nowhere to be seen. Faith doesn't comment on this, she just mutters that she's off to save her sister, and the guy on the radio to her says that he "heard all [he] needed to."
And that's all that's mentioned of Cel. Presumably they're keeping her as a villain in the sequel or something, but seriously...3/4 of the game devoted to catching her, then she just vanishes? And in an extremely lame way, with none of the characters being at all interested in finally finishing her off? Sigh. Welcome to Mirror's Edge, where things don't have to make sense!
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Plot Irritant 2 - The Schizophrenic Police Lieutenant
This one's simple. There's a CPF (the original "good" city police) officer named Miller who through the whole game alternates every animated cutscene or two between helping you and being a dick.
In one (pointlessly animated) cutscene, he arranges to meet Faith, and then jams a gun in her face while talking. In another, he is seen talking with a major bad guy. Then, at the end of the game, he shoots two mercs attacking you and suddenly goes massively out of his way to help you.
I guess they did this to keep the player guessing, but it ended up making me so unsure of his character that I just wanted him to help out or die.
Obviously the same writer who worked on Cel finished this part of the plot - we never even get to know what happened to him, we just hear an ambiguous gunshot as he talks mid-sentence over the radio. Then we don't hear from him again.
Another
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Plot Irritant 3 - The Absolutely Ludicrous Ending
This is by far the most bemusing part of the game. Kate is to be executed, and the bad guys also want Faith dead.
So naturally, when the last major baddie has Kate at gunpoint, and Faith at his mercy, he kills both of them.
Wait sorry, that would make sense, what am I thinking?!. No, what I meant to say, is he doesn't do anything except talk for ages! Yeah, that's more like it.
Then he bundles Kate onto a chopper (which is going to Loltown or something. It's never explained) and a load of SWAT guys with machineguns run up behind the unarmed Faith.
What happens next? Well, the bad guy says something cheesy like "Sometimes you have to jump Faith." He then starts shooting at Faith from the hovering Chopper, and the 4-5 SWAT guys also begin shooting.
Why he didn't shoot earlier doesn't matter, and neither does the fact that Faith can dodge 5 machineguns at once from about two metres away. She's FAITH!11one!
Anyway, then the "WTF" factor is suddenly dialled to 5000. Faith leaps into the helicopter (which is about 1-2 metres off of the roof) and kicks the big bad out of it to his death. Then the helicopter starts to crash because the SWAT guys' bullets hit it (lol) and so Faith grabs her sister and throws her out (o_0).
Then Faith leaps out of the chopper, which is spinning at about 400 miles per hour, and lands on the roof as it blows up. She then hugs her sister, and the two stare out at the city as the camera zooms out and soft music starts.
Processed all that yet? No, I haven't either!
In the review I mentioned a stupid deus ex machina ("from nowhere") plot resolution. What was that? Well, remember those SWAT guys firing hundreds of bullets seconds ago from the roof? When Faith and Kate hug on the roof as the chopper blows up, they're suddenly gone.
That's right, a whole squad of gun-toting bad guys about to kill the heroines all just cease to exist in the ending moments of the game with no explanation at all. What. The. Crap.
Plot Irritant 4 - What was the point? --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
So the game ends with a logic-defying ending, two major characters with totally unknown fates, and the radio guy who helps you all game (Mercury) dead in a brief animated cutscene.
Mercury was quite possibly the one no-BS, fully-developed character in the game that I rooted for, other than Faith herself. And he gets shot off-screen and dies in a 20 second long piece of abrupt animation.
The last thing he says is "No 'sorrys', Faith. Just don't let them win."
From that quote I assumed the end of the game would have Faith bringing the evil government crashing down, or liberating the city, or some massive event of vengeance. Instead she saves her sister, disappears a SWAT team with magic, and that's about it. Evil empire lives. City doesn't change. Merc is unavenged. Half the cast has vanished.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
So if anyone is actually still reading after this extended rant, I think really my overwhelming feeling is of disappointment. ME is a game that really feels great in places, but it's like somewhere things got cut out or rushed, and the last half or so of the story got thrown together as a result.
Gameplay videos coming soon.
Friday, 10 September 2010
Online Accounts and Patience
*Readers should be aware that I was in a bad mood while typing this. Any such posts will be tagged with "Ragepost". Swearing and sadistic remarks may be at above average levels.*
I hate computers.
I was rather hoping that all my game-related bile had dried up from yesterday's prolonged outburst at DLC. Unfortunately not, as an infuriating experience this morning has proved.
What is it with games (and for that matter, other online services too) having ridiculous account systems that make the user fly through freaking hoops just to do the simplest things?
Ages ago, I enjoyed playing Company of Heroes, a WW-II themed real-time strategy game, made by developer Relic. Then I bought the expansion, Opposing Fronts, and much fun (read: swearing) occurred while I faffed about trying to get the two products to work in harmony due to the game's bizarre online account system.
Recently, after a long absense from the game, I picked up the mini-expansion, Tales of Valour (I refuse to spell it the American way!) for a sweet £2.50 deal on Steam.
Right, I'm thinking, just fire up Opposing Fronts, key in the ToV code from my steam purchase, and everything should work. I can have a brief game against the AI, play with shiny things, done.
No, of course it is never that simple. I'm greeted with the Relic Online login screen. I've long since forgotten my account, so I get the piece of paper I wrote it down on (after forgetting it once in the past and having a massive pain in the neck).
Login! Oh wait, I can't, because it tells me the details are wrong. They can't be, since I haven't changed them since writing them down. That means that the game needs to be patched before it will recognise my login details.
This leads to a lengthy attempt at installing a small 26mb patch through the game's updater.
Does that work? No prizes for the answer. I open all the router ports the game requires for updating, to absolutely no avail. It just tells me that the download failed. No reason or anything, natch.
I then sod around for about 45 minutes (no exaggeration, I've been sat here for a full hour now) Googling how to actually find the patch version of the game, so I can manually update it, and then perform that. Naturally that required this weird "Cancel download to get up prompt for disc validation." dance.
Excuse me, but how the bloody hell am I meant to know cancelling the download instead of just letting it fail will let me validate my game with the disc?! Why is there no "use disc" button? /tearhairout.
Apparently all this assorted bollocks is in place to provide an easier experience for the user. Since that is obviously rubbish (having to download at least 10 patches does not equal user friendliness), it is clearly a purely anti-piracy measure. Got to love how those have a tendency to screw up the experience for legitimate customers only.
I'm pretty sure the pirates don't even have a login screen on their version, so no need to bull around with all this kind of rubbish, plus they get the game free.
Nice job gaming industry, nice job!
I hate computers.
I was rather hoping that all my game-related bile had dried up from yesterday's prolonged outburst at DLC. Unfortunately not, as an infuriating experience this morning has proved.
What is it with games (and for that matter, other online services too) having ridiculous account systems that make the user fly through freaking hoops just to do the simplest things?
Ages ago, I enjoyed playing Company of Heroes, a WW-II themed real-time strategy game, made by developer Relic. Then I bought the expansion, Opposing Fronts, and much fun (read: swearing) occurred while I faffed about trying to get the two products to work in harmony due to the game's bizarre online account system.
Recently, after a long absense from the game, I picked up the mini-expansion, Tales of Valour (I refuse to spell it the American way!) for a sweet £2.50 deal on Steam.
Right, I'm thinking, just fire up Opposing Fronts, key in the ToV code from my steam purchase, and everything should work. I can have a brief game against the AI, play with shiny things, done.
No, of course it is never that simple. I'm greeted with the Relic Online login screen. I've long since forgotten my account, so I get the piece of paper I wrote it down on (after forgetting it once in the past and having a massive pain in the neck).
Login! Oh wait, I can't, because it tells me the details are wrong. They can't be, since I haven't changed them since writing them down. That means that the game needs to be patched before it will recognise my login details.
This leads to a lengthy attempt at installing a small 26mb patch through the game's updater.
Does that work? No prizes for the answer. I open all the router ports the game requires for updating, to absolutely no avail. It just tells me that the download failed. No reason or anything, natch.
I then sod around for about 45 minutes (no exaggeration, I've been sat here for a full hour now) Googling how to actually find the patch version of the game, so I can manually update it, and then perform that. Naturally that required this weird "Cancel download to get up prompt for disc validation." dance.
Excuse me, but how the bloody hell am I meant to know cancelling the download instead of just letting it fail will let me validate my game with the disc?! Why is there no "use disc" button? /tearhairout.
Apparently all this assorted bollocks is in place to provide an easier experience for the user. Since that is obviously rubbish (having to download at least 10 patches does not equal user friendliness), it is clearly a purely anti-piracy measure. Got to love how those have a tendency to screw up the experience for legitimate customers only.
I'm pretty sure the pirates don't even have a login screen on their version, so no need to bull around with all this kind of rubbish, plus they get the game free.
Nice job gaming industry, nice job!
Thursday, 9 September 2010
Games and "Downloadable Content"
There is a new marketing technique taking gaming by storm. It is called "Downloadable Content", or DLC.
Consoles have been doing this since the XBox 360, but it's something that is now slowly creeping it's way into the PC sector.
First of all, I'm not against all forms of DLC. In the past there were always expansion packs for games that you could buy in a store to add new stuff. They typically added quite a bit of new gameplay or story. Fallout 3's DLC generally has a good reputation as it adds a lot of content, and the original game was well made.
What I am definitely against, however, is this new tide of "bullcrap DLC". Games developers have recently been making a game with a lot of content, cutting a lot of that original content out, and then re-selling it after release as DLC packs, often for £5 or more per purchase.
Alternatively they deliberately build the game around some kind of minor but irritating flaw (such as a poor ending or lack of weapons), and then bring out DLC almost immediately after release that "fixes" that problem.
Deliberately gimping your product, mis-selling it, and then re-selling lumps of it strikes me as a pretty unethical business practice and I'm surprised the companies in question are even allowed to do it legally.
Take Mafia II for example. In trailers for the game, several missions (complete with dialogue, fully rendered cutscenes and everything else) are totally missing. There are no "side-missions", but simply a main story that winds through the length of the game (which works well since the story is strong, but it still feels as though something was cut out.)
Then, a couple of days back, after the game has only been out about a week at most, suddenly the developers (2K) released a DLC pack, currently priced at £6.30 on Steam. Now, I only just paid £29.99 for the game, there is no way I'm dropping £6.30 less than a week later.
This pack is called Jimmy's Vendetta, and features a bald mercenary out for revenge. The pack is apparently far more "arcade" in nature, and features 30 tasks that have you racing around the city shooting enemies and blowing stuff up.
Thirty may sound a lot, but the whole extra content pack can apparently be finished in around 40 minutes, the tasks are so short.
Short missions with an arcadey feel? That sounds almost like the side-missions that seemed "cut" from the game!
2k vehemently denied this, insisting everything was new content that they'd freshly made (in a week, lolz). They dug their own grave with that one. In the (new) apartment in which Jimmy stays, screenshots clearly show the name "Vito" (the standard game character) engraved on the apartment ownership sign. Oops!
Honestly, if you paid for a delicious burger, would you expect a big bite out of the meat inside? And then you're told that you'll have to pay extra to have that chunk back, in a slightly different form?
Since Mafia II's ending is left very ambiguous (someone even joked that the next DLC will feature "The ending and an epilogue.") I wouldn't be surprised if they're going to release a crap-ton of missions for Vito for £6 a pop soon as well.
Someone even spotted a future pack named "Joe's Adventures" in the game files - Joe being a character that the ending hinges around.
It's not unique to Mafia II either.
Fallout 3, while generally regarded as having very good value DLC, also had a remarkably crappy "standard" ending that prevented you playing on with your established character. Many fans were annoyed by this.
Presumably the decision was made to deliberately make it quite a closed ending let down, because the next DLC pack suddenly changed it to an open-ended "keep-playing" ending. *Insert cash register sound*.
Meanwhile CoD:Modern Warfare 2 has been charging £10.99 for maps already in the original game, just ported over to the sequel in 5 minutes. You have to be joking.
Steam is also telling me that "Sniper: Ghost Warrior" (which admittedly I've never played) is now charging £9.99 for 5 new multiplayer maps. Call me crazy, but the whole game was £29.99 I believe.
So 5 new maps (for which only the mapping and artistic parts of a dev crew need to work on) cost 1/3 of the original price? Lol.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I think the only way to stop this pretty cynical cash-cow esque technique of selling every last drop of a game is to stop buying the lamest of the DLC packs.
Sadly time and time again gamers have proven that they don't have the will to take such an action, and I imagine it will be several years before it becomes such a rip-off that most of the public stop buying it.
Until then, I'll bitterly enjoy watching people spend £6 for a new gun/hat/car for Vito.
Consoles have been doing this since the XBox 360, but it's something that is now slowly creeping it's way into the PC sector.
First of all, I'm not against all forms of DLC. In the past there were always expansion packs for games that you could buy in a store to add new stuff. They typically added quite a bit of new gameplay or story. Fallout 3's DLC generally has a good reputation as it adds a lot of content, and the original game was well made.
What I am definitely against, however, is this new tide of "bullcrap DLC". Games developers have recently been making a game with a lot of content, cutting a lot of that original content out, and then re-selling it after release as DLC packs, often for £5 or more per purchase.
Alternatively they deliberately build the game around some kind of minor but irritating flaw (such as a poor ending or lack of weapons), and then bring out DLC almost immediately after release that "fixes" that problem.
Deliberately gimping your product, mis-selling it, and then re-selling lumps of it strikes me as a pretty unethical business practice and I'm surprised the companies in question are even allowed to do it legally.
Take Mafia II for example. In trailers for the game, several missions (complete with dialogue, fully rendered cutscenes and everything else) are totally missing. There are no "side-missions", but simply a main story that winds through the length of the game (which works well since the story is strong, but it still feels as though something was cut out.)
Then, a couple of days back, after the game has only been out about a week at most, suddenly the developers (2K) released a DLC pack, currently priced at £6.30 on Steam. Now, I only just paid £29.99 for the game, there is no way I'm dropping £6.30 less than a week later.
This pack is called Jimmy's Vendetta, and features a bald mercenary out for revenge. The pack is apparently far more "arcade" in nature, and features 30 tasks that have you racing around the city shooting enemies and blowing stuff up.
Thirty may sound a lot, but the whole extra content pack can apparently be finished in around 40 minutes, the tasks are so short.
Short missions with an arcadey feel? That sounds almost like the side-missions that seemed "cut" from the game!
2k vehemently denied this, insisting everything was new content that they'd freshly made (in a week, lolz). They dug their own grave with that one. In the (new) apartment in which Jimmy stays, screenshots clearly show the name "Vito" (the standard game character) engraved on the apartment ownership sign. Oops!
Honestly, if you paid for a delicious burger, would you expect a big bite out of the meat inside? And then you're told that you'll have to pay extra to have that chunk back, in a slightly different form?
Since Mafia II's ending is left very ambiguous (someone even joked that the next DLC will feature "The ending and an epilogue.") I wouldn't be surprised if they're going to release a crap-ton of missions for Vito for £6 a pop soon as well.
Someone even spotted a future pack named "Joe's Adventures" in the game files - Joe being a character that the ending hinges around.
It's not unique to Mafia II either.
Fallout 3, while generally regarded as having very good value DLC, also had a remarkably crappy "standard" ending that prevented you playing on with your established character. Many fans were annoyed by this.
Presumably the decision was made to deliberately make it quite a closed ending let down, because the next DLC pack suddenly changed it to an open-ended "keep-playing" ending. *Insert cash register sound*.
Meanwhile CoD:Modern Warfare 2 has been charging £10.99 for maps already in the original game, just ported over to the sequel in 5 minutes. You have to be joking.
Steam is also telling me that "Sniper: Ghost Warrior" (which admittedly I've never played) is now charging £9.99 for 5 new multiplayer maps. Call me crazy, but the whole game was £29.99 I believe.
So 5 new maps (for which only the mapping and artistic parts of a dev crew need to work on) cost 1/3 of the original price? Lol.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I think the only way to stop this pretty cynical cash-cow esque technique of selling every last drop of a game is to stop buying the lamest of the DLC packs.
Sadly time and time again gamers have proven that they don't have the will to take such an action, and I imagine it will be several years before it becomes such a rip-off that most of the public stop buying it.
Until then, I'll bitterly enjoy watching people spend £6 for a new gun/hat/car for Vito.
Tuesday, 17 August 2010
Supermarkets
Have you ever noticed that supermarkets seem to be a kind of congregation area for people who enjoy making life frustrating? Sometimes I'm convinced that there is some elaborate conspiracy that shoppers and staff alike are in on. They all communicate with each other to make buying some simple items a mind-numbing chore.
Now, to be fair, the majority of the time you'll go into a supermarket and staff will be friendly, professional and pleasant to ask for assistance if you need it. My beef most certainly doesn't lie with these people, and to them I raise a salute.
No, my irritation lies with those like the Aisle Juggernauts, as I'm now going to start calling them. They'll shove a cart right down the aisle in an unswerving line and nearly take your foot off without so much as an apology. If they're having a bad day you'll get a dirty look as if it's your fault that you couldn't phase through the wall to escape them.
Then there's the Boasting Bloke, who is by no means restricted to the supermarket staff profession, but is especially annoying here.
At one point I was in Tesco's to buy milk, newspaper, bread. Boring stuff. That was when I noticed the shelf was blockaded by three guys and a staff cart, two of whom were listening to the Boasting Bloke.
As I stood a few paces away, staring at the milk as if my sheer concentration would cause the group to melt, Boasting Bloke continued to witter on smugly.
"Yeah, so then we went for drinks at blah, and I said blah, and then we all blahdeeblah'd! Hahaha! Yeh, yeh, you know it. And then I was like, blah, I can do that! And then I met her at the bar, and blah-"
At this point I muttered "'Scuse me." to no effect. Concluding that manners were apparently a foreign language in this aisle, I came back right at the end of the shopping list, only to find the prat still rambling on about his great night down thebrain donor's clinic pub.
Disturbingly, I found myself subconsciously sizing up how to best deliver a fatal overhead smash with the crispy French baguette resting in the trolley, but decided against it.
Fortunately the situation eventually resolved itself when an elderly guy practically rugby tackled him out of the way.
Finally for staff, there is the Amateur Juggler. There is a guy like this down my local mini store who just can't seem to resist performing advanced theatrics with food as he puts it through the scanner.
It's not enough to just scan it, he has to spin it round in one hand, slide it through upside down, perform keepy-uppies and eventually reverse header it into the bag. This is combined with a total lack of sense in regard to the fragility of the items.
Maybe it's a squishy cake that he zips through the scanner and slamdunks into the bag? Or perhaps a pack of biscuits that he decides to hurl the jar of marmelade on top of?
Then there are the other customers. I won't go too far into that, this post is already long so lets break it down into brief little classes:
- Mr/Mrs. Vacant - Baked Beans are apparently so wondrous that they deserve being stared at for fifteen minutes...but not before they've blocked the whole aisle with their trolley.
- Which Sandwich? - Lunch is a matter of grave importance for this shopper, who instead of just browsing, will continually lift up various items, stare at them, and put them down. This continues for around five minutes, with the offender always picking up the sandwich you want just as you lunge towards it.
Then there are the new self-service checkouts, which berate you in sudden loud harsh voices if you look at them the wrong way. Lack of a proper queuing system also means that queue places are usually assigned via gladiatorial combat.
Do you have your own shopping hates? Feel free to comment them, I'm sure I've missed quite a few!
Now, to be fair, the majority of the time you'll go into a supermarket and staff will be friendly, professional and pleasant to ask for assistance if you need it. My beef most certainly doesn't lie with these people, and to them I raise a salute.
No, my irritation lies with those like the Aisle Juggernauts, as I'm now going to start calling them. They'll shove a cart right down the aisle in an unswerving line and nearly take your foot off without so much as an apology. If they're having a bad day you'll get a dirty look as if it's your fault that you couldn't phase through the wall to escape them.
Then there's the Boasting Bloke, who is by no means restricted to the supermarket staff profession, but is especially annoying here.
At one point I was in Tesco's to buy milk, newspaper, bread. Boring stuff. That was when I noticed the shelf was blockaded by three guys and a staff cart, two of whom were listening to the Boasting Bloke.
As I stood a few paces away, staring at the milk as if my sheer concentration would cause the group to melt, Boasting Bloke continued to witter on smugly.
"Yeah, so then we went for drinks at blah, and I said blah, and then we all blahdeeblah'd! Hahaha! Yeh, yeh, you know it. And then I was like, blah, I can do that! And then I met her at the bar, and blah-"
At this point I muttered "'Scuse me." to no effect. Concluding that manners were apparently a foreign language in this aisle, I came back right at the end of the shopping list, only to find the prat still rambling on about his great night down the
Disturbingly, I found myself subconsciously sizing up how to best deliver a fatal overhead smash with the crispy French baguette resting in the trolley, but decided against it.
Fortunately the situation eventually resolved itself when an elderly guy practically rugby tackled him out of the way.
Finally for staff, there is the Amateur Juggler. There is a guy like this down my local mini store who just can't seem to resist performing advanced theatrics with food as he puts it through the scanner.
It's not enough to just scan it, he has to spin it round in one hand, slide it through upside down, perform keepy-uppies and eventually reverse header it into the bag. This is combined with a total lack of sense in regard to the fragility of the items.
Maybe it's a squishy cake that he zips through the scanner and slamdunks into the bag? Or perhaps a pack of biscuits that he decides to hurl the jar of marmelade on top of?
Then there are the other customers. I won't go too far into that, this post is already long so lets break it down into brief little classes:
- Mr/Mrs. Vacant - Baked Beans are apparently so wondrous that they deserve being stared at for fifteen minutes...but not before they've blocked the whole aisle with their trolley.
- Which Sandwich? - Lunch is a matter of grave importance for this shopper, who instead of just browsing, will continually lift up various items, stare at them, and put them down. This continues for around five minutes, with the offender always picking up the sandwich you want just as you lunge towards it.
Then there are the new self-service checkouts, which berate you in sudden loud harsh voices if you look at them the wrong way. Lack of a proper queuing system also means that queue places are usually assigned via gladiatorial combat.
Do you have your own shopping hates? Feel free to comment them, I'm sure I've missed quite a few!
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