Monthly Archives: August 2010

Questioning my orientation

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If you play games on your phone, help me out by answering a poll question.

I’ve noticed something about my own habits playing games on the iPhone, and I wanted to see how common it is, so I set up a poll for it.

The games that get the most play-time on my phone are the ones that support portrait orientation (Drop 7, Words With Friends, Helsing’s Fire, Bejeweled, etc), partly because I can jump in for a quick game while I’m otherwise occupied (read: on the toilet). If a game only supports landscape or plays better in landscape, I treat it more like a “real” game: I only start it up when I’m ready to devote a big chunk of time to it. If you play games on your iPhone, iPod Touch, Android phone, or whatever, help me out by answering the poll.

(If you feel inclined to explain, feel free to leave a comment too).

Too Big to Mock?

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The Other Guys is guilty on several counts of Failure to Quit While Ahead

If The Other Guys had stopped about 5 minutes in, it would’ve been the best Funny or Die video ever made. If it’d stopped at about 15 minutes, it would’ve been a great action movie parody. If they’d cut it off around an hour, it’d be a really strong Will Ferrell and Adam McKay comedy. An hour forty, and it’s a definitely-not-their-best-but-one-of-the-better-ones Will Ferrell and Adam McKay comedy.

But at some point — I’m guessing very close to the end of the process — somebody decided that this didn’t have to be just another silly and forgettable movie and could very easily be turned into Relevant Social Commentary. They tacked on a jab at the government bailouts, literally at the last minute, which would have just seemed like another gag that wasn’t quite inflated enough: I was left thinking, “Really? That’s all they’re doing with that whole Anne Heche subplot?” But then over the closing credits, they pounded it home with a series of animated infographics about Ponzi schemes, Bernie Madoff, and the cost of bailing out AIG and others.

The whole movie is built around not knowing when to quit. You can tell they’ve got their own little formula going, making movies based on the idea that if you get Will Ferrell in front of a camera with a bunch of reasonably funny people and a sliver of a concept, you can just let the camera roll and eventually you’ll end up with gold. And it mostly works. Sure, the scenes tend to go on a little bit too long, and there are several you can tell aren’t as funny as they were hoping they’d be, and the movie doesn’t really arc so much as gradually deflate. But there’s nothing that falls absolutely flat, everyone in the cast does a good job with the material, and there are several moments that are really funny.

But it’s not strong enough to outweigh the bad taste left by that ending. It’s like having a pretty good but not outstanding dinner and not finding the hair on the plate until the last few bites. Because these just don’t seem like people who can get away with complaining about excessive spending.

I doubt that Will Ferrell and Mark Wahlberg are pulling in the ludicrous salaries of corporate execs, but I’m pretty sure they don’t work cheap. And the rest of the cast (apart from Samuel L. Jackson and Dwayne Johnson, who pretty much had to be in the movie for it to work at all) aren’t super-expensive A-Listers, but most of them were at one point or another. Even discounting the fact that most of them are probably friends of the filmmakers or people treating it as an extended Funny or Die project, it seemed like kind of a waste of casting money. Throughout I kept thinking, “Did you really need to spring for Anne Heche for such a small part?” Or “Titus Pullo should either have more action scenes or better dialogue.” Or even “That’s the woman from all that stuff whose name I can never remember. She should have more than four lines.”

What’s weird is that I never think about that kind of thing during movies. But all through this one, even before the ending, I kept going into producer mode, thinking how expensive everything must’ve been. There are at least fifty demolished cars, and at most five of them were needed for a punchline. (No seriously: they have a Prius drive over the tops of two other cars after a gag is over, just to show it driving away). At least one helicopter explodes, and I don’t have any idea many real-world helicopters that ends up being. Multiple buildings and storefronts are blown up or demolished. Scenes are filmed in penthouses and soon-to-be-demolished offices which can’t be cheap. I had a dollar-to-joke-payoff counter running through my head the whole time, and after the first thirty minutes or so, it wasn’t giving a very good return on investment.

But even with all that, they didn’t know when to quit. After all, being expensive isn’t the same thing as being evil, and I’ve got little doubt the movie will end up making money, even without the product placement money from Bed Bath and Beyond. (And Toyota, assuming all the exposure for the Prius outweighed having characters compare it to a vagina). I got about ten bucks’ worth of entertainment out of it, the theaters were pretty full so no doubt the investors will make their money back, everybody wins. It’d be hard to equate even an over-budgeted movie with large-scale corporate corruption.

Except the little infographics at the end tried to put a populist spin on everything. They had a little chart showing how everyone’s 401(k) is worth half as much as it was before the sub-prime mortgage collapse. And a little elevator showing the increasing pay disparity between corporate CEOs and regular employees. And a businessman on a hammock with a big number over his head showing how much CEOs of failed companies made in bonuses.

And that’s where they lost me. Because I couldn’t help but take a couple zeroes off that number and reckon that that’s how much Will Ferrell or Mark Wahlberg have made for a couple of movies. Or that just one of those scenes with a gag that didn’t quite pay off probably cost as much as I’ll make in two years of working. Or that some guys made millions from running their companies into the ground, and other guys are making millions by making repeated jokes about TLC in 2010. Either way, they’re seeing a lot more money than I am. And that’s not exactly something you want to be drawing attention to.

I guess in the end, I would’ve rather seen a movie about the first guys. Because every second of Samuel Jackson and The Rock going over the top was worth every smashed car, bus, and facade of the Trump Tower it took to make it.

Untitled

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Cameron Stewart’s Sin Titulo out-Lynches David Lynch and deserves every award it’s won.

sintitulopanel.pngSin Titulo is a free webcomic by Cameron Stewart, and it’s kind of brilliant. It won the Eisner Award for best digital comic at Comic-Con this year, in addition to several other awards since starting in 2007. It’s a little annoying that someone who’s that good an artist could write so well, too.

Then again, it kind of makes sense — what’s most remarkable about Sin Titulo is its pacing, which should be familiar to someone who’s got a career laying out comic panels. But that doesn’t account for how natural the dialogue is. Or some of the unexpected and genuinely creepy turns the story takes. Or how well the mood is conveyed throughout, building up the tension and unease to just above unbearable and then pulling back for a flashback or the relief of a narrow escape.

Okay, I’m jealous.

The only problem now is that I’ve read three years’ worth of content in a few hours, and now I’ve got to wait days or weeks in between story updates. It’s like having to watch Twin Peaks or Mulholland Drive (except you care about what’s happening to the characters), but in interrupted spurts of five minutes.

(Also notice the donate button on the site, since it’s a self-funded comic separate from his commercial work).

Cockroaches v. Bright Light (2010)

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Activist judge overturns Proposition 8, completely undermining The People’s fundamental right to discriminate

Today, California’s Proposition 8 was overturned in a ruling by Chief US District Judge Vaughn Walker. The National Organization for Marriage quickly issued a press release:

“Big surprise! We expected nothing different from Judge Vaughn Walker, after the biased way he conducted this trial,” said Brian Brown, President of NOM. “With a stroke of his pen, Judge Walker has overruled the votes and values of 7 million Californians who voted for marriage as one man and one woman….”

Their desire for appeal is understandable, considering the clear bias of Walker, who is, of course openly gay. (And who was originally nominated by Ronald Reagan, failed to be confirmed because of liberal opposition to his “insensitivity” towards homosexuals, was again nominated by George H.W. Bush, and was unanimously approved by a Republican-majority Senate).

This outrageous demonstration of the separation of powers has sent shockwaves throughout the nation, raising deeper questions about the fundamentals of American government, such as: “Have any of you people ever read a high school Civics textbook?” Understandably, the defendants in the case were quick to express their outrage:

California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger: “For the hundreds of thousands of Californians in gay and lesbian households who are managing their day-to-day lives, this decision affirms the full legal protections and safeguards I believe everyone deserves. At the same time, it provides an opportunity for all Californians to consider our history of leading the way to the future, and our growing reputation of treating all people and their relationships with equal respect and dignity.”

California Attorney General Jerry Brown: “In striking down Proposition 8, Judge Walker came to the same conclusion I did when I declined to defend it: Proposition 8 violates the equal protection guarantee of the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution by taking away the right of same-sex couples to marry, without a sufficient governmental interest.”

Supporters of Proposition 8 — who are not homophobic, just deeply committed to states’ rights and the freedom of religion, no honest — lament this as yet another example of the long, unsettling history of judicial activism in the United States. Loving v. Virginia, Brown v. Board of Education, where does it all end? The very concept of activist judges legislating from the bench is the antithesis of the ideals our country was founded on.

Brian Raum of the “Alliance Defense Fund” — again, not persecuting gays but defending the democratic process — paints a nightmare scenario:

“The majority of California voters simply wished to preserve the historic definition of marriage. The other side’s attack upon their good will and motives is lamentable and preposterous,” Mr. Raum said. “Imagine what would happen if every state constitutional amendment could be eliminated by small groups of wealthy activists who malign the intent of the people. It would no longer be America, but a tyranny of elitists.”

Imagine what would happen if every citizen’s rights could be eliminated by large groups of wealthy religious activists from out of state who introduce new discrimination into a state’s constitution under the hypocritical guise of “defending” an institution. It would no longer be America, but a tyranny of bigots.

After all, seven million people voted in favor of Proposition 8. Are we going to say that the opinions of seven million people are less valid than the opinion of one man? (Well, one man and the 6.4 million men and women who voted against the proposition?)

As Fox News responsibly asks: “I’m not sure but shouldn’t voters views count for something?” The ballot didn’t even include an “I’m not sure” option; it reduced it to a simple “for” or “against”. (Well, a simple “for a ban against the right of same-sex couples to marry” or “against the ban for the right of same-sex couples to not marry.”) If we can’t trust the right of disinterested strangers to make uneducated decisions about the rights of others, then where would we be? Advancing the issue to an appointed third party who makes decisions based on nothing more than years of legal training, familiarity with constitutional law, the merit of the prosecution and defense’s cases, weeks of deliberation, and a public ruling subject to appeal? In America?

Meanwhile, thousands of gay men and women were unavailable for comment at press time, as they are waiting for the judicial process to continue through a lengthy series of appeals and continued deliberation while watching thousands of their friends and relatives in real relationships have their marriages acknowledged without resistance. Or were spending years if not decades praying to be “cured,” waking up every day filled with self-loathing and a desperate wish to no longer be different from everyone else, lying in bed staring at the ceiling contemplating the likelihood of dying alone and wondering if suicide would be better. Or running for office on an anti-gay-rights platform.

(And incidentally, to the helpful people pointing out that marriages shouldn’t be the responsibility of government in the first place: Feel free to introduce a separate proposition outlawing civil marriage in California, and see how far you get with that. Until then, back the fuck out of the business of the thousands of people who believe in marriage, have spent their whole lives picturing themselves getting married just like their parents and friends did, want to share that marriage with the world, but can’t because they’ve had to spend years hearing assholes trying to convince them that they chose to be perverted or that they were born “broken.”)

This is Jimmy?!

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If Starcraft 2 is just more of the same, how come I like it?

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StarCraft 2 came out last week, and statistically speaking, it’s likely that you’ve already bought a copy. But what if you’re like me, someone who hates StarCraft but hates even more getting left out of the next big thing everybody else is doing?

Maybe “hate” is too strong, but it’s fair enough to say that the first StarCraft and I have a troubled history. The troubles went way past any one game, though; this was an abusive relationship that soured me on an entire genre. Maybe an analogy will help clarify:

StarCraft : my attitude towards RTS games ::
Sybil’s mom : Sybil’s attitude towards enemas

Before I played StarCraft, it was a completely alien concept that I could be bad at videogames. I mean, I can and will lose games if pitted against another human, and there are things like racing games that I’ll never be good at because I can’t be bothered to care. But the idea that there could be a videogame with robots and spaceships and lasers in it, that I could play by myself against the computer on normal difficulty, and lose? Inconceivable!

It wasn’t a quick and merciful smackdown, either, but a prolonged bare-assed spanking. I’d believe I was doing fine and then slowly, systematically, and rigorously corrected. My breaking point? As early as the third mission in the game, where I’d have to defend a base against Zerg attacks for 30 minutes. I’d try it over and over again, each time thinking Now I know what I’m doing! and each time waiting 25 minutes until my inevitable destruction.

I don’t even want to think about multiplayer. I’ve seen otherwise relatively normal people sit down in front of StarCraft and become transformed, like a cyber-nano-hacker from a syndicated sci-fi series getting jacked into the FutureNet. Their eyes glaze over, their fingers begin furiously tapping keyboard shortcuts, things start blowing up and they’re freaking out over choke points. Even if it were at all possible for me to win against that, there’d be no joy in it, I’d be more machine than man at that point.

So by the time StarCraft 2 was announced, you’d think I’d have learned my lesson. Here was a game tailor made for the Blizzard obsessives who get obscenely fixated on damage per second. For people who’d spent the last 12 years playing this game, presumably making it past the third mission. Screenshots of the sequel were almost indistinguishable from the original (and from each other). It was, by most accounts, more of the same.

But I bought it anyway. And it is, indeed, instantly recognizable and familiar. And I did progress through a couple of simple missions that convinced me I knew what I was doing before hitting one that had me defending my base against Zerg attacks for 20 minutes.

Except this time, I did it. I definitely haven’t gotten better at RTS games in the years since the first game, so I can only figure that Blizzard applied their usual level of exhaustive playtesting to the game to make sure that people like me could play.

The single-player campaign on normal difficulty is right at my level of comfort: easy enough that I haven’t given up in frustration yet, but not so easy that I feel as if I’m being patronized. Plus, the single-player campaign feels like a real game, not just a series of levels tied together with cut-scenes that say “Look How Much We’ve Seen Aliens!” You can choose between different missions to take, there’s a little bit of character building and customization as you collect research and money to make unit upgrades, and you get to hang out in different rooms of your own spaceship.

All the cut-scenes are done in engine, too, which is kind of astounding. It’s fairly standard redneck space marine stuff, but it looks great. And the storytelling within the missions is a huge improvement on the first game’s, too. My first reaction when seeing the game in action was that I’d spent far too long seeing games with short development cycles. There’s a ton of content in StarCraft 2, and you can see all the years of development on the screen.

People better-versed in strategy games could describe the mission balance, unit variety, player matching, and multiplayer. I’m still early in the game; currently in the middle of a mission that has me defending my base against zombified colonists that only come out at night. That’s about five or six missions in, and each one has had its own hook to make it seem distinct. And even if things go downhill from here, I’m happy that the game’s already accomplished the impossible: I’m actually having fun playing the single-player campaign of an RTS. Everything looks, sounds, and feels like StarCraft, except I’m actually looking forward to getting back into it.

Now they just need to hurry up with Diablo 3 already.