Tag: Blade

All Those Moments

Reviews

“I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Time to die.” -Roy Batty, Blade Runner (1982)

Quite literally, that is probably one of my favorite quotes in all of Science Fiction film. The moment in which it is uttered is perfect, and the lines are like poetry coming from the lips of a machine that probably does not understand the beauty of the words programmed into his brain. When I saw Blade Runner it was the second Rutger Hauer film I had seen. The first being The Hitcher one night when my parents weren’t paying attention and it was on Cinemax. I was probably 13 years old at the time, and both of those films have stuck with me.

I have always had a soft spot for Rutger’s films. Even when they are mildly cheesy, they are still good, and he always seems tailor made for the parts that he plays. So when I heard that he was putting out an autobiography, I was chomping at the bit to find a copy. Which I did. All Those Moments is a nice, fairly short, but finely detailed recounting of Rutger Hauer’s life, it jumps around a bit and not every single film he made is mentioned, but he tours the highlights, the things that he remembers best and the moments he is most proud of. It is interesting, funny, sometimes heartwarming, and told in a sort of conversational style that makes from easy breezing through the chapters.

He has had a pretty interesting career all around, and as a fan I really enjoyed it. Rutger is also donating all proceeds from the book to his Starfish organization for AIDS, so you get a good read and throw a few bucks at a good cause.

Zombies: Crafting

Gaming

How exactly would one go about building a game where the player can do anything they want?

Well… you can’t. Seriously, unless you want to be Second Life 2, you have to exert some content control over what the players create. That’s why I have come up with a two pronged assault…

First: a lengthy beta period. The original people brought into beta will serve two functions, the first being to test the game for bugs… but the more important function is to “think shit up”. Want to build a weapon by attaching an ice skate blade to a hockey stick? Sure, sounds good, recipe inserted into game and now everyone can get an ice skate, a hockey stick and some duct tape (or string) and make this new weapon.

Second: the design tool. We won’t allow players to design their own models directly, but they will be allowed to submit suggestions. Suggestions will consist of two types “Assemble” and “Dismantle”. The dismantle submission will be accomplished by having the player drag the item model, for example: an ice skate, into the model window and then in the provided text box explain “I would like to be able to remove the blade from the ice skate.” The game designers/admins will review the suggestion, and if approved will create new models for an ice skate blade and an ice skate shoe without blade, and then add the new dismantle recipe to the game (and to the patch notes, “Ice skates can now have the blade removed from the shoe”). For the other side, they’d drag the models for the ice skate blade and the hockey stick into the design window, align them as desired, attach them with tape (or string) and then in the provided text box explain “Would be used as a weapon.” Again, the designers/admins would review it, if approved they would need to add the new assembled model, animations for using it, alternate uses for it if they think them up, item statistics if they are required, and slap it into the game (and the patch notes, although since part of the fun of the game is to figure stuff out, assembly notes might be intentionally vague).

This way, you give players the ability to create what they want, but we retain control of what goes in the game and how, mostly so we can prevent player_x from inventing yet another in a long line of freaky sex toys. Sure, it is labor intensive, but since I plan for the game to have no bugs, my CS people will need something to do. 🙂

Blade: The Series – Revisited

Reviews

I have never been someone unwilling to admit mistakes. Over a month ago, closing in on two, I put up a little review for Blade: The Series.

From the perspective of the two hour pilot, I stand behind my review. It was crap. However… as the show has progressed, the creators of the show did something interesting and unexpected: they pushed Blade into the background. Now, the show is still about him fighting vampires, trying to foil their nefarious plans, but they realized, as most people have, that telling that story from Blade’s point of view is boring. He finds vampires, he kills them. Dull as dirt. Instead, the show introduced a young woman who was turned, but Blade got to her and has put her on his serum. She’s not a daywalker like him, but the serum keeps her mind clear of the hunger for blood. Blade then sets her the task of infiltrating the vampires to get him information, to destroy them from the inside. And she’s got good reason, the vampires killed her brother.

At this point, the show becomes more about the vampires, interactions among the clans, the divide between then infected and the pure bloods (born as vampires)… in other words, it actually becomes watchable, even enjoyable, and in some episodes it is down right good TV. It harkens back to Kindred: The Embraced in some ways, and I’m certainly getting a kick out of it.

And thankfully, Randy Quaid hasn’t returned as of yet… Let’s hope it stays that way.

Blade: The Series

Reviews

I have two words for you: Randy Quaid.

Now, I’m not going to denegrate Mr. Quaid because he is a decent actor given the right material, but he is certainly not an “A” lister. I loved him in the National Lampoon’s Vacation movies, and to be honest his performance in Category 7: The End of the World was one of the few watchable things in it. Here, he plays a vampire expert, and like the rest of the show it is just not worth it.

Blade without Wesley Snipes is… well, its pretty much the same because Wesley Snipes is one the most wooden actors in existance, and the man they got to fill his shoes is like a fake wood made of fiberglass.

Trash… complete trash. So help me I’ll probably watch the whole damn season.

Nobody Gets the Girl

Reviews

So lately I have been reading alot of books, largely superhero books from Marvel and DC, but whenever I can find one I prefer those that did not start as a comic book. Nobody Gets the Girl is one of those books.

The story is simple: Richard Rogers wakes up one morning to find out that he was never born, but somehow he’s still around, and no one can see him or hear him… except Dr. Knowbakov and his daughters, who go by the names Rail Blade and The Thrill. And just like that, he is sorta a superhero trying to save the world from itself and Rex Monday.

This was a good, fun, fast read. It really read like a comic book, only without the art to linger over the pages just flew by. One word: Awesome. I highly recommend the book.