Today is Free Comic Book Day.
So, don’t forget to look up your local participating comic book shop and drop in.
Latest Posts
Iron Man
for fantastic heavy metal, both suit and soundtrack
This is how you do a comic book super hero movie. The guys who made the Fantastic Four should be forced to watch this and maybe they’ll understand why their movie was crap. Normally when a character from comics is brought to the screen, the first thing they want to do is tell you the origin of the character. However, most writers/directors don’t seem to quite understand that you don’t have to start at the beginning and tell a linear story. The audience, quite contrary to popular belief, is not stupid. They may gravitate to more visceral experiences of things blowing up than the more cerebral dramas, but just because they enjoy simply uncomplicated pleasures it does not make them mentally deficient. The Fantastic Four and Hulk movies dragged because rather than jump into a very interesting story and fill you in on the origin as they went, they decided to start at the beginning, which has little action and is a snooze-fest. Daredevil, while suffering from other problems (mostly, in my opinion, a miscasting of Bullseye and Kingpin), at least the pace of the film works well. With Iron Man they did decide to tell you the origin, but at least they were smart enough to weave the story of the film in with the origin such that they are not explicitly telling you the origin of Iron Man but instead telling you a story about Tony Stark during which Iron Man comes into being. It is a subtle yet very important distinction.
Anyway, I’m not going to go into details of the film because it was awesome and I don’t want to spoil it for anyone. However, I do want to touch on the soundtrack, mainly because it too was awesome. The use of rock music in the film was superb, and the song choices were excellent. I was surprised pleasantly throughout the film as songs popped up and properly set the mood for the scenes, and even more surprised that they actually held off using Black Sabbath’s Iron Man until the end credits, because, frankly, using it anywhere else in the film would be like hitting you over the head with a hammer.
Fans of Iron Man should be pleased with the film as they did sprinkle enough “nerd knowledge” throughout to make the comic book geek in me smile without drowning me in comic references.
Fun, fast and fantastic, Iron Man gets a well deserved 12 out of 13 here… I’d have given in 13, but I do try to hold off perfect scores for stuff that is truly life alteringly spectacular.
Grand Theft Auto IV: The End of the World
That isn’t actually the title of the game, but if you read enough stories in the media surrounding the game’s release, you might think that it should be.
Myself, I’ve never played a GTA game. No wait, that’s not entirely true. I’m pretty sure that back in 1997 I pirated a copy of the original game off a BBS and played it for about an hour. I was bored. My brother also gave me his copy of GTA: Vice City for the PC, which I’ve been meaning to install and play for a couple years now, but haven’t. All in all, I’m just not excited about the series.
I’m not worried about the violence or the sex… the reason I’m not excited is because I just don’t generally enjoy playing the “bad guy” in games, unless I know there is going to be redemption. I play games to be the good guy, the hero, the one man who stands in the way of the complete annihilation of the human race, or something like that. Being the villain just isn’t my bag, baby.
There is a video floating around, I’m not going to link to it, showing clips of a few of the sex encounters with hookers from GTA IV. Its definitely something I wouldn’t want my children to see if I had kids, at least not until we’d had the “sex talk” and I was sure they understood the difference between games and reality. Of course, the sex is actually the least of the reasons why I’d want to keep the game from my kid… the way your character treats the women actually sits above that, and then there is all the violence which is actually at the top of the list. But then, the game is rated M, so my kids wouldn’t get to play it, unless I were sure they could handle it, which is something I would determine for my child on a child by child basis… that’s what I hear is called “parenting”. I certainly wouldn’t need the media or the government to make that decision for me.
Wil Wheaton (yeah, the kid who was on Star Trek: The Next Generation) has posted was I think is an excellent summary of how I feel on the whole brouhaha over the game. Thanks to Ryan at Nerfbat for the link.
Anyway… unless someone tells me that GTA IV allows you to play through the game without being a criminal, or that you can play such that your criminal actions are for the greater good, I’m going to continue my course of not playing the GTA games. Do they make GTA style games for good guys? That I might be interesting in playing…
The Atrocity Archives
I have a tendency to read slow when it comes to books. Mostly this happens because of the manner in which I read. As I plow through the prose, in my imagination I am building the book. I don’t just read the words, I live them. So when I come across a book that evokes within me extremely vivid visions, I actually read even more slowly as I crawl around in the world being constructed in my head.
This is what happened with Charles Stross’ The Atrocity Archives. Imagine a world where all the horrors of Lovecraft exist just outside our reality and letting them in is a simple as figuring out the math and science needed to cross the barrier, which people do, all the time, and the only reason the world continues to exist is due to the efforts of government organizations around the globe who track and deal with these sorts of things. That’s the world that Stross sets his story in, specifically within The Laundry, the Occult branch of Her Majesty’s Secret Service, and Bob Howard, a computer hacker who works for them.
I’m a sucker for math, especially when its confusing enough to sound real and yet not concrete enough to punch holes in, like that TV show Numb3rs. So when I found that essentially the book takes place in the world where there isn’t really “magic” per say, but instead that what many would see as magic is only advanced math and science and a deeper, less well known, understanding of the universe, I just had to give it a shot. And I loved it.
I look forward to reading the other book in the series, but not until I’ve taken a break for a book or two. If I get bogged down again, I’ll never make my 52 in 52.
Mafia Matrix
Since dumping Urban Dead, I was looking for another free web game to play and thanks to Ryan over at Nerfbat, I was pointed toward Mafia Matrix.
In an odd way, Mafia Matrix is almost the complete opposite of Urban Dead. While the zombie game only penalized you with time, death was just becoming a zombie and you could be revived, this little mob system simulator is much more harsh. Death is death. You can make a new character, but a dead character is dead for good. Of course, there is much more to do in the Matrix than just killing people. You work jobs, collect money, buy stuff, steal from people, and there is a real community. See, in Mafia land, players get to be the Mayors of the cities, the judges, the lawyers, the store owners, and the gangsters. If you go whack someone without permission of the local don, you might find yourself dead.
It makes for interesting game play. I, for example, have gone the route of being a legit lawyer. I don’t commit crimes, but I will take any case and make sure that all my clients are given the best defence the law allows. Of course, every criminal I get off means that the city doesn’t get that fine as revenue, so even defending criminals could get me killed, or at least run out of town, if I deny the city too much money.
Anyway, for now I’m enjoying the game. If you play and want to look me up, I’m Jhaer and I spend most of my time in Miami. And if you do decide to play, do so from one of the links in this post, I get something for the referral if you stick with the game.
The Real Harry Potter
Back in 1986, or it may have been 1987, I didn’t realize that a simple trip to the local video store was going to introduce me to one of the most widely known names in the world today. In fact, I didn’t even realize that such a momentous thing had occurred until my brother told me about the recent developments earlier this week.
You see… my brothers and I, as kids (who am I kidding? nothing has changed really as we grew up), liked to watch really awful movies. The Sci-Fi/Fantasy/Horror section of the video store was the best. And in 1986, a little movie called Troll was released. It is the story about a boy named Harry Potter (Junior, his father is also Harry Potter), who learns to use magic to fight a troll who is attempting to take over the world, or at least to turn it into a place full of magical creatures.
The only reason this has come up is that it seems the original writer and director of Troll, John Carl Buechler, wants to remake his film, with a larger budget (£20 million) and according to various sources Warner Bros. is trying to stop him from infringing on their copyright. The question is, can you copyright something you did not create first?
Its not as if this is some random director trying to make waves by making a film with a character named Harry Potter. This is a man wishing to remake a film he made 22 years ago and utilize the same character names he used 22 years ago, 4 years prior to the 1990 bolt of inspiration that J.K. Rowling claims began her endeavour of the now more well known use of the name.
As far as I know, Buechler has made no attempt to sue Ms. Rowling, to force her to change the name, nor to ask for any monetary compensation, he only claims that since he used the name first in a copyrighted work, but didn’t copyright the name specifically, it places the name “Harry Potter” in the public domain where anyone can use it.
Who is going to win? Personally, I feel that Buechler is right, at least in the case of his movie. He used the name first and should be allowed to continue to use the name in remakes of that work. But we’ll have to wait and see what the courts decide if Warner Bros. continues to head down that path.
All in all, it makes me paranoid about the things that I write. Now I’ll probably have to make sure I google every name I make up just to make sure that no one else made it up first.
Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay
for not deviating from the course
Four years ago, Harold and Kumar went to White Castle. Now, in the sequel that picks up right where the original left off (they are heading to Amsterdam so that Harold can hook up with Maria), they escape from Guantanamo Bay.
I’m not going to spend alot of effort reviewing this as trying to explain anything is just going to ruin jokes. But if you enjoyed the first film, you are bound to enjoy this one as well. I know I did. Its hilarious.
Consoles and Couples
Something I left off of Monday’s post about Burnout Paradise was its lack of local multiplayer. They aren’t alone. Tons of games don’t have local multiplayer. And even more rare are games that allow more than one player to play online.
One of the greatest features of Rock Band is that my wife and I can both play, and play online. Now, of course, the interface for Rock Band is pretty simple… but the fact remains, if I wanted to sing, my wife wanted to play bass, my brother wanted to play guitar and my brother’s wife wanted to play drums, despite living a thirty minute drive away from each other, the four of us can do that, my wife and I on our console and he and his wife on their console.
Burnout Revenge had a local multiplayer mode, so the wife and I could race… but if I wanted to go online, she couldn’t play again, because only one player can be online from the same console in that game. And that’s how most games are: Local or Online, but not a mix of both.
More games need to explore allowing multiple players from the same console play online. I don’t work at a game company, so I can’t say for sure, but I would love to know what the hang up is. Do they just not think about it? Do the games require so much bandwidth that they can’t possibly run two sessions from one machine? Is there not enough RAM or processing power? I realize that there would have to be limitations… perhaps in Burnout Paradise, the second (and third, and fourth…) player from a console could only join if the first is hosting the game, and they can only join the locally hosted game.
Since I did name Rock Band as an example where a couple can play online together, does anyone out there know of other games that allow multiple players to be online from the same console?
Urban Dead is dead to me
Ten months ago, I was first introduced to Urban Dead. A free online game about fighting hordes of the undead and surviving the zombie apocalypse… or so I thought. About seven months ago, I was excited to be playing the game, casually fighting zombies and barricading myself inside buildings while I slept. The game wasn’t and isn’t overly graphic, but I was more than capable of filling in the narrative myself. After getting myself skilled up a bit, four months ago, I decided to create a project for myself in the game, and a week later I had to modify that project due to what had become the glaring flaw in the game’s design. After I abandoned Munford, I took residence in the Pickford Cinema over in Osmondville…
At this point, I really wish I could say that things took off, the movie theater was made secure, we fortified the doors and beat back the walking dead, slowly spreading out to other theaters and growing a network of safe havens for people to pretend they are watching movies as the undead shamble out in the streets. I really wish I could.
The major design flaw in Urban Dead is that you, as a survivor, cannot win. And I don’t mean that in a “this is an MMO with endless grinding, a virtual world, and there will be no ‘You win! The end!’ screen.” sort of way… I mean that in a “There will always be more zombies because you can’t kill them for good because they are not NPCs, they are the other players.” sort of way.
A month we spend inside, making neighboring buildings safe, keeping the free running paths clear. Trips to the mall for supplies, gas from the gas station to keep the generators running… life was pretty good. Then a horde of zombies comes through, breaks down all the barricades, kills all the people, and makes a mess. Now, all us survivors are zombies. Luckily it doesn’t take too long to wander over to a NecroTech building with a revive point, but it does take nearly three weeks to get all those people revived (it takes 20 action points to make a syringe -but you can search for them and cut that down- and 10 action points to revive someone, after you spend a point DNA scanning them, so that 1 person, even if they already have the syringes, can only revive 4 people a day). It takes us another two weeks to get all the buildings back in good order, then the zombies come through again…
I don’t want to be a zombie. Obviously some people do. But when my game, as a survivor, is actually 75% of the time spent trying to recover from being killed… I would rather lose levels than this. Especially since I have no say in my deaths at all… they all happen when I’m offline.
I tried. I really tried. Its just not worth the frustration. I play games to be the hero, the guy that “wins”, not to be just another victim.
I’ll still be keeping my eye out for zombie games, and I still desire to make one… but for now, Urban Dead, as far as I’m concerned, is dead.
Earth Day
Today is Earth Day.
So, being that that is what today is, I figured it was time for another edition of what I will from now on refer to as “Probably Not Saving The World!”
Previously on the blog, I’ve mentioned my efforts to reduce my junk mail. The first couple of steps I took helped, but it always seemed to be a momentary slackening of the flood, not a stoppage. Then I was pointed at GreenDimes. I signed up for their $20 premium package, and the junk mail has all but stopped. At this point, the only things I get that I consider junk are a few local items, which I can excuse because they are local advertisements of local businesses and not big chains. Its nice, and it makes me feel better about not wasting all that paper. With the GreenDimes service, you can even get the names of previous tenants dropped from lists, which is great since at this point nearly a third of my junk was for people who don’t live at my house.
We still keep up on the recycling, but even more so, I recently suffered through caffeine withdrawal in order to stop drinking Cokes, and have pulled way back on the number of canned and bottled beverages I drink. With a decent filter, tap water is just as good, if not better, than anything you can buy at the store. Plus, the more things you buy at the store (like sodas and bottled water) are more things that need to be trucked around the country. While I haven’t gone totally for “buying local”, I am trying to cut back on all the things I buy where I can.
Next up, we are looking to have an energy audit done on the house. That’s where someone comes and inspects the house to find all the places where you can improve efficiency, mostly for heating and air conditioning, to cut back on usage. As it is, we are trying to let the house stay cooler in the winter and a little warmer in the summer if we can stand it.
I’m really hoping that within the next five years I can get solar panels put on the house. You can even get money from the government to help with that, and get a tax write off.
So anyway… Happy Earth Day! Even if you don’t believe in “Global Warming”, garbage is still garbage, and less garbage is good.