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The Thunder of Guns

Reviews

I command you, if you have any interest in seeing Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World, then do so in the theater. A good theater. Drive many miles if you must.

I will admit, when I first heard of this film I though to myself, "A movie about sailing and boats." But as I learned more of the story, an English ship sent out to sink, burn or capture a particular French ship finds that the French of in fact hunting them, it got more interesting. Still, even after seeing some previews and scenes and interviews with cast, the movie didn’t really call to me.

However, the movie is fantastic. And as the title of this little review suggests, the cannon battles between the two ships litterally rocked the theater. This is definately one of those films that just won’t be the same at home…

… at least until I can afford that home THX theater.

Changes, they are a-comin`…

Gaming

The first round of melee changes went in a little while ago. Disciplines for pure melees (WAR, ROG, MNK) were split into 4 separate timers, partially unlinking them. Hybrids got theirs split into 2 timers, but then they only get 2 high level disciplines.

Some of the less useful disciplines got revamped, like Thunderkick now enhances all kicks for 60 seconds instead of just a single kick.

SOE also introduced the Endurance bar to replace the mostly defunct Stamina bar.

And Warriors got their new taunt skill-spells put in.

At first glance, I was happy I got my disciplines unlinked, but I was worried about the Endurance. However, after playing with them a while, I’m able to juggle 3 of my current discipline – Innerflame, Whirlwind, and Ashenhand – without to much trouble. I don’t sit, and I’m regularly full endurance when its time to use one (except the rare cases when the differing timers line up and I have 2 ready to go at once). Each discipline uses from 50% to 80% of my endurance, but so far that’s no trouble.

On the test server they are still playing around with the rest of the new combat system. The original on test was pure twitch gaming. During a fight, an “opening” would appear, in EQ that was a time bar on a window that said “Offensive Opening” or something like that. Lasted approximately 6 seconds. Or rather, 1 tic. In EQ a tic is 6 seconds, or rather, it is at most 6 seconds. Some of the openings flashed by in under a second. While the opening is counting down, you are supposed to push a button for the skill you want to use, expending endurance for the effect. Some of the skills were quite nice. Rogues got a form of snare, monks got a form of root, extra damage, stuns, attack and armor class debuffs… it was looking quite cool, except for the Whack-a-mole! style gaming they introduced. You had to sit and stare at the screen, and when the opening came, pray you caught the beginning of a tic so that your brain had time to fire off a message to your finger to push the button.

There is still hope though… SOE withheld releasing the new skills in order to make them less twitchy.

In addition to those combat skills, monks will be getting a form of limited use Lull. Should make pulling interesting. But the best of all is, after being successfully feigned for 2 minutes, a message will indicate that the player has been removed from all hate lists. No more /q’ing out of the game! Woot!

So, the end result is.. it looks like they are listening. Pure melees, who were too simple to be balanced, are being made more complex, and several long standing annoyances in the game are finally being handled.

2004

Random Thoughts

So, another year ends.

In 2001 I had a pretty horrible year. I got caught in the downturn of the economy for IT professionals and what should have been 1 or 2 weeks between jobs turned into 5 months. Then some shitheads flew a couple of planes into the World Trade Center, and what should have been 5 months turned into 8. I actually had 3 interviews lined up for the few days after 9/11, but by 9/12 every one of them closed their doors in a hiring freeze. I think the tragedy of 9/11 is exactly that. It was the worst single day in the lives of lots of people, but more than 2 years away from the shock and awe of that event, I mostly only recall that it extended my unemployment for 3 months, and added in excess of two thousand dollars to my already mountainous pile of debt.

In all honestly, when 2002 rolled around, I figured that I had just survived the worst year of my life. And as 2002 progressed, I felt that was accurate… until December 31st, 2002. That was the day my mother called me to let me know that she had cancer.

2003, as it turns out, would wind up dwarfing 2001 in personal pain and hardship. From day 1 life started to spiral downward as my mother started her chemo treatments. In February, we found out that the cancer was terminal, but that she had 2 years or more left because she was responding well to the treatment. In March, due to complications of a prior surgery, chemo had to be stopped and my mother entered the hospital. On March 17th, my mother came home from the hospital. Because the treatments had been stopped, and because of the prior surgery, the cancer had spread quickly. On March 26th, my mother passed away.

The rest of the year followed as many might expect. My mother was very important to me, and the loss of her darkened everything. Everyone in my family had to go through their first birthday without her around… first Halloween, first Thanksgiving, and first Christmas. 9 months later and everyone in my family is outwardly okay, but I know for myself that inside it still hurts.

So what does 2004 promise to bring?

More of the same unfortunately… Everyone keeps telling me it will get easier, but so far, the only person I believe is the one who said, “My father has been dead for 13 years, and it still hurts.” Hopefully though, there will be more to this year, and in some ways, after even only 2 days into it, there already is as I’ve been (sort of) given a promotion at work. No extra pay, but more responsibility. We’ll have to wait and see how that all works out…

2004… one day at a time…

The Lord of the Rings

Reviews

I went last night to see the final installment of the Lord of the Rings trilogy and…

This is, by far, the best trilogy of films ever made.  Ever.

The story is fantastic, the filming is beautiful, everything.  Its as close to perfection as a set of movies can be.  I doubt in my life I will ever see a set of films so good.

In a way, I am saddened.  When I was younger, I had dreams of creating films, and I still do.  I even dreamed of making films of this particular series of books.  And now that I have seen them, it saddens me to know that not only did I not make them, but that I know deep in my soul that I could never have done a job as good.

I will still dream of making films, but now I finally have both ends of the spectrum in mind… there are films that I know I could have done better, and now there are films that I know I’ll never surpass.

If you have not, go seem them.

28 Days Later…

Reviews

I picked up the DVD for 28 Days Later… last week and watched it a couple nights ago.

Wow.

I had heard good things about this film, but actually seeing it I was blown away by the simplicity of the look and feel of the film, it just draws you in.

If you don’t know, the story is about a man who has been in a coma who wakes up 28 days after a bizarre virus has been unleashed in England.  The virus infects people and makes them “rage”, forgetting everything else except an unbridalled hatred for everyone they see.

I think the best part of the DVD though is they include the original ending, the alternate ending, an extended version of the alternate ending, and an ending they never filmed.  That last one is really the coolest part as the writer an director show the story boards and read the script explaining what would have happened if they had filmed it.  Most importantly though is the point where the description pauses and the director states something like “and right here is why we didn’t use this ending, its very cool, and I really liked it, but this one point right here just isn’t possible, it goes against things we’ve already established in the film.”

Definately worth the money to pick it up.

Ideas on hold…

Gaming

SOE is going to be introducing an all new melee combat system. So, to that end, I am going to withhold judgements and further suggestions until I see what they come up with.

Either it’ll be good, or it might be bad enough that I give up on EverQuest.

December and Christmas…

Random Thoughts

As December decends upon us, it is clear that the time is nigh to draw close the books on 2003.

I’m not feeling particularly jolly this year. In March my mother died, and from all I ever saw, the holidays from Halloween to Christmas was her favorite time of year. So as a result, this being the first year without her, I’m stuck in a funk. I just can’t seem to get happy.

Add in to that the fact that my job is… well… unsatisfying, and that finding a new one isn’t going too good… add to that that I’m still mostly broke with the same pile of debt I had last year (though it seems bigger)…

In all of this though, I have become decidedly clear on one thing. If I had a million dollars, do you know what I would do?

I’d buy the rights to the movie “It’s a Wonderful Life”. Sure, that sounds to be a horribly poor choice of where to spend the money, but I want to bring back something that I miss from my youth. See, a long time ago, Republic, the company that owned the rights to the movie wasn’t enforcing them, so, every TV station would show “It’s a Wonderful Life” about ten or a thousand times from Thanksgiving to Christmas.

The movie itself isn’t the most fabulous thing in the world, in fact, when it opened in the theater, it bombed. The story isn’t terribly fantastic, and these days you’d almost consider it a “cookie cutter” Christmas tale. But as I was growing up, there was something magical about it. I’d be waking up for school and while eating breakfast I’d flip on the TV, and George would be yelling about finding Zuzu’s pettles… then I’d come home, and sure enough, George was getting boxed in the ear for not delivering the pills… on Saturday, George would be jumping into the lake to save his brother and messing up his ear… Wednesday, they’d be singing “Buffalo Gals won’t you come out tonight”… Every time you had a few minutes before getting lost in the hustle and bustle of the holiday season, you’d catch a minute here or a minute there… you’d be flipping the channels looking for something to watch for 10 minutes until the show you wanted to see came on… it was there, in the background, blending in and hiding away, sometimes you wouldn’t even realize that you’d actually watched the movie three or four times, although never at a single sitting… until finally, you’d pick a time and set your mind to settling down and watching it… but even if you didn’t, it didn’t matter, because you’d seen it, it was there….

Then through the legalities of the business world, someone found out they owned the rights and pulled in their strings. It only airs once or twice a year now. I bought it on video (and then on DVD), but its just not the same… there’s something missing, something less about it now…

So that’s what I would do… If I had a million dollars, I’d buy the rights to “It’s a Wonderful Life”…

And then I’d let everyone who wanted to to show it as often as they wanted to, for free.

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

Reviews

So I take my own advice and go see a horror film on Halloween.

The remake for “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre”.

Now, I’ve seen about half the original, and to me, well, it just wasn’t good.  I know lots of people find it to be a classic of horror films and such, and so do I, but I also recognize the fact that its about 20 years old.  The movie production values of those days just don’t hold a candle to these days, and there is just something about some movies where just the images, the special effects, the level of acting, just keeps you at arms length and constantly reminds you “It’s only a movie.”

All of that is gone.

Take the script of the original and film it today.. that’s what you have with this remake.  They didn’t update it, the story still happens in 1973, so no Pokemon, or MTV, or any of that.  And everyone who died before still dies.  There is no happy happy ending.

Did I mention its scary?

Yeah, I jumped a number of times.  I even gasped a time or two.  My arm was removed from its socket a dozen times by my fiance.  And when it was done, I felt a rush of blood, heart pumping, “Its over and I made it.”

Oh, my.