| Quick life update |
[Jul. 14th, 2009|05:03 pm] |
I have been unexpectedly struck with a mild case of Girl Problems. You know, the kind I could easily diagnose and prescribe for if I weren't personally involved. :-/
I took last week off from work, divided into two halves:
1. Trip to Spring City, Tennessee with my parents to see my grandpa, Fred. As I have a very strong natural resistance to guilt trips, and an iPod loaded for bear, I had lots of fun catching up on sleep, sun and quiet; my parents were not so lucky. Fred is doing relatively well, but the house feels rather empty with my grandma gone. TV watching is a central activity; unfortunately, there is no news and fewer TV worth watching.
2. Aggressive relaxation at home, with Matt and I staying out of each other's way as usual - not out of malice or distaste, but simply that our Xboxes are located in separate rooms, and our social circles are more like a Venn diagram. I have read and acquired copies of the Foundation trilogy and Asimov's first two robot novels, Joss Whedon's Astonishing X-Men, and Grant Morrison's New X-Men - and I'm 300 pages into Augustine's City of God. I am apparently developing a social life, which is a not unpleasant feeling that manages to surprise me every time.
On Saturday, I also attended a small Magic tournament, with far less preparation than the Street Fighter events in February and correspondingly lackluster results (2-1-2, purely my fault for not going 3-1-1). As before, encounter with the greater hobby has cooled my enthusiasm, to the extent that I declared "I don't own any cards" and gave away everything I won at the event for a non-sanctioned "championship" deck.
This segues nicely into this week's project: Selling off junk on Ebay. I currently plan to dispose of the following items:- Essential Wolverine comic books vols 1-4
- Dell Inspiron E1705 laptop, with all the bells and whistles
- Big lots of TCG stuff: Magic, Star of the Guardians and Wizkids Pirates
- A complete set of Star of the Guardians cards
- Strong's Exhaustive Bible Concordance
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| Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season 3 |
[Jul. 14th, 2009|11:24 am] |
Just wrapped up my breathless tour with ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) kissingdaylight and rainsymphony, plus occasionally my roommate Matt. Some observations:
- Like all superhero narratives, Buffy has become a soap opera with vampires. A focus on character development is only natural once the "hook" of introducing the characters and their powers has been played out for a few episodes, and even more natural for a show which is targeted aggressively to teenage girls. (Says the man who, at age 8, read the entire Babysitters Club series in order...)
- I like to make fun of Joss Whedon's take on romance, where all kisses are consuming waves of passion and all relationships are doomed to end in fire and blood. However, he does make some cute couples, thanks to strong characters in general, so I don't mind that much. Hopefully with a change of scenery for seasons 4+, there will be fewer conversations revolving around sexual tension. (Hope against hope, really.)
- The show has definitely benefited from maturity. They hired a fight choreographer, the sets are more atmospheric and varied, the minor characters are breaking free of Buffy's orbit, and long romantic arcs are better when your couple has something to talk about besides how much they want to get in each other's pants (see: Season 2).
- Since I didn't see Season 3 in one unbroken whole, I'm not as confident about predictions, although my batting average was pretty good last time. I am expecting 2-3 occurrences of sex, a shape-shifting villain, a human serial killer, a sudden surge in utility for Xander, a "New Mutants" team of minor characters who have underworld connections but aren't working for Buffy, and the return of Spike as Emma Frost.
I've also been thinking about character parallels between Buffy and X-Men. (I'm sure there are other superhero analogs, but I only really know one team; and since Whedon is clearly thinking of classic Claremont/Byrne X-Men, so will I.)
( Read more... ) |
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| BlazBlue Calamity Trigger: First Impressions |
[Jul. 2nd, 2009|11:41 am] |
I was fully expecting not to purchase this game and go on my merry way. But there was a conflux of events:
- Forbidden to watch the rest of Buffy, and possibly scammed out of my Ebay purchase by a guy who has cancelled his account - I'll keep you posted.
- The Limited Edition is very compelling - for $0 extra, there are 2 soundtrack discs and a DVD that promises to teach you strategies, combos, etc. And the soundtrack (from Daisuke Ishiwatari) might be worth listening to.
- I have a week of vacation coming up, and I wanted to justify all the money I spent on Street Fighter by re-using the hardware.
So I picked up a copy, watched pretty much the entire training DVD, and promptly got my butt kicked by everyone from the computer to online players. (I think I have a horrible 40% win ratio right now, but it didn't help that I jumped online at 1 AM.) Here's what I'm thinking:
This is the Madden to Street Fighter's FIFA. If air dashes and D-pad motions don't come naturally to you, you are going to die, and the game has no sympathy for you whatsoever. Each character has some weird gimmick that makes them unique, interesting, and confusing. You are gonna need that tutorial DVD. Watching the game and seeing the character designs, however, is lots of fun. I had a double entendre here, but it sounded awkward.
On the softer side, Guilty Gear's influence is apparent. Same composer, same cyber-Gothic art direction, same outlandish Japanese fever dream character designs, same intricate and bizarre story mode. If Bridget doesn't creep you out, you will probably like this part of BlazBlue.
There's one thing I'm excited to try out: the Easy Controls mode, where you can just flick the right analog stick to do special or super moves. This is a big deal, since super moves are substantially better in this game than they were in Guilty Gear. It sounds like fun - I'll try it out tonight and let you know.
Also: I seem to have continued my torrid love affair with no-defense zoning characters, despite the fact that they make me SO MAD when they don't have any way to get out of pressure. At least SF4 Bison could run away for 25% meter; my new crush (ν-13) has no real defensive options except "block and throw 'em". |
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| Buffy - Season 2 Impressions |
[Jun. 25th, 2009|09:41 am] |
Having found Season 1 of Buffy the Vampire Slayer pleasantly diverting, I picked up a copy of Season 2. It was actually a rather nice surprise. I constantly found myself saying, "I like this concept." or "Awww."
( Read more... ) |
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| Health Care Reform - Quick Thought |
[Jun. 24th, 2009|01:52 pm] |
Recent Republican attacks on the administration's various health care plans have taken the form of, "Why revamp health care if 78% of Americans are satisfied with their current coverage? It works fine already!"
This is a fundamental misunderstanding of the situation. The problem with health care is not that we don't get enough high-quality health care. The problem is it costs too much, and on its current trajectory will continue to cost too much forever. This causes problems for the government, for employers, and the legions of people who find their insurance didn't actually insure them against medical bankruptcy.
Obama & co. have a bunch of small health care fixes like computerized records, but there are two very rational ways to cut big chunks out of health care spending:
1. Cut administrative costs and insurer-based profits. Medicare is good at this, as is a free market - meaning either a "public option" plan or a removal of employer tax breaks for health care.
2. Pay for effectiveness, not treatments. A wasteful hospital orders up to 2x the treatments and scans of a cheaper one, but doesn't actually perform any better. This is going to mean a substantial pay cut for doctors, whether it comes by rationing or by reworking Medicare payouts. (That, of course, means lower pay all down the line, ending at med schools.) It sounds impossible but it needs to happen. |
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| Star of the Guardians: When Top-Down Design Fails |
[Jun. 23rd, 2009|03:02 pm] |
(Usual disclaimer: Only gamers need to read these posts. I'm not sneaking a wedding announcement beneath the cut or anything.)
It was Top-Down Design Week over at the Magic official website, about how to design rules around a particular idea. Mark Rosewater, as always, has a great column where he goes through maybe 50 different ideas for the concept "locust swarm" before he finds a good one.
Most of the time, the Star of the Guardians rarity system ensures that rare cards are the best cards. Where a common Black Hole sucks an enemy ship back to their hand, a rare Mutiny will discard the ship. For all the bottom-up designs, this works just fine, and the numbers have clearly been tested heavily.
The top-down designs are the problem. ( Read more... )By the time the dust has settled, you're left with a bunch of cards which are appealing and flavorful on their own, but contribute to an unhealthy format. A similar cloud of possible answers to a handful of questions is what creates the hostile environment for fighters and bombers. This one is more galling, because the answers and the questions are rare; with fighters, the answers are common and the questions are rare. |
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| Quick political note |
[Jun. 22nd, 2009|04:52 pm] |
I hate to admit it, but Obama is right.
The #1 issue facing America is the national debt - and by extension the federal budget deficit.
The #1 cause of long-term deficit growth is health care spending. It's been outgrowing the economy for years without improving our relative standing, it has an endemic waste problem, and entitlement spending is immune to regular balanced-budget rules.
The #2 cause of long-term deficit growth is the recession. I may not agree with Obama's and Orszag's stimulus strategies, but all sustainable budget projections include a steady rate of growth so that we can keep our tricky position as the biggest debtor and the best currency - so getting back on that track will do more than any of the other initiatives to balance the budget, even if the numbers on paper are horrifying.
Unfortunately, Obama is actually backsliding on causes #3 (defense) and #4 (the environment), so we'll see how his track record holds up. |
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| Buffy: First Impressions |
[Jun. 22nd, 2009|04:20 pm] |
Thanks to an oversight in FYE's membership club service, I found myself with a $20 gift certificate, and shortly thereafter Season 1 of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I wasn't watching TV at the time, so I missed the original run, and my parents probably wouldn't have let me watch it anyway - but I've heard good things about it from several sources, notably kissingdaylight. As I'm on a bit of a Joss Whedon kick at the moment - snarky dialogue with a side of emasculating heroines, coming right up! - I decided I should give it a whirl.
Nine hours later, the first season under my belt, I am presented with a Whedonified version of Star Trek - our hero and her sidekicks explore new varieties of demons, curses, vampires, etc. on a weekly basis, inevitably accompanied by a parallel problem in the real world, among the 'crew'. The cast stays pretty much static, but I don't think it can stay that way for long. (This is a similar situation to Firefly, where Whedon also put off the brimming sexual tension for a dozen episodes - except Buffy didn't get cancelled.) And because the setting is a Rich White Kids high school in California, the Whedon staple of making sex a constant topic of discussion actually makes sense. Tenth grade is perhaps the MOST appropriate time for everybody to be thinking about hormones, so what comes across as embarrassing in Firefly or comedic in Astonishing X-Men is an expected part of the narrative. Also: Willow, the female sidekick, is adorable. I guess I do have a thing for dorky girls with bad hair.
The season finale disposes of the season's final boss rather unceremoniously, while also introducing some potential complications for season 2 - namely, the secret identity circle expands to include the computer science teacher (who, as the only adult with a functioning social life, is automatically awesome) and Buffy's primary real-life antagonist (the Mean Girls reject). The boss thing I can forgive, because he was underwhelming in the first place, but from long superhero genre experience, Buffy is approaching a critical mass of human sidekicks. Either somebody has to die, which doesn't seem likely, or any future cast members need super powers.
After reading the Wikipedia article (skipping spoilers), it makes sense that the #1 inspiration for Buffy was X-Men's Kitty Pryde. (She's the 13-year-old new recruit who brings a dose of teenage problems like divorce, school, and first crushes to the otherwise outcast, closeted, twentysomething X-Men.) Now I know why the first issue of Astonishing X-Men is basically a love letter to Kitty. Not that I mind, because she's easily one of the best characters: a useful but fair power, real character development, and a genuine courage that the more experienced characters never get to express because they're already amazing. Honestly, though, Buffy lacks that last element. From episode 1, she knows she's the star, and so she acts a little too cocky for me to really empathize with her.
We'll see how it goes. |
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| Al Jazeera is good for something |
[Jun. 20th, 2009|10:00 am] |
Breaking news of a suicide bomber in Tehran. Things have just gotten ugly, folks. (As far as I know, they're the first to run this story.)
The question is, if Iran is Secretly Pulling All the Strings, why would someone send a suicide bomber in against the Ayatollah? |
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| Movie Review - I, Robot |
[Jun. 18th, 2009|04:57 pm] |
Initially, I was excited about sci-fi writing giant Asimov's best work - the short story collections beginning with I, Robot - were being adapted into a movie with actual production values. Unfortunately, the movie learns exactly the wrong lessons from the source material, to the point where it says it is "inspired by Isaac Asimov" instead of "based on the book by Isaac Asimov." The script's idea of dramatic tension is Will Smith punching a robot in the face. Overall, it's a textbook example of how a bad screenplay and bad story can ruin a perfectly good movie.
The core problem is the tension between two conflicting storylines: (Spoilers ahoy!)
1. Will Smith, a detective who is racist against robots, tracks down a murder committed by a robot. Nobody believes him - robots are programmed not to harm humans - but it turns out this robot is a unique, sentient being with hopes and dreams who can break the rules, and it was an assisted suicide anyway. And on top of that, Will Smith is actually a cyborg, exactly like Fullmetal Alchemist. In a good movie, this would result in soul-searching, and eventually he would crash through a window and save the good robot from the bad guys. In a bad movie like this one, these plot threads are never really resolved and nobody's character develops in any way, despite the 20 minutes of careful setup.
2. A dead legendary programmer leads Will Smith on a trail of breadcrumbs to discover a sinister conspiracy involving the president of U.S. Robotics, an AI plotting a robo-revolution, and his female sidekick, Dr. Susan Calvin. Things go wrong and the two must fight their way through armies of evil robots, catwalks above bottomless pits, CG car chases, etc. Will Smith is vindicated: robots really ARE out to kill us all, and I was the only one who subscribed to the right conspiracy theory to stop them! Ha ha!
As you may imagine, jump-cuts between these two plot lines creates a bit of dissonance. Robots are evil and I need to stop them! But this robot had a dream about me last night, and it doesn't want to die! Since the script is awful, you can actually distinguish good and evil robots by color codes: red ones are bad, blue ones are good.
In an actual Asimov story, Dr. Susan Calvin would spend 20 minutes talking the evil AI out of its crazy world domination scheme. The good robot would argue that sacrificing human freedom by taking over is actually destroying the very thing that makes them human: their hopes and dreams. Et cetera. But this is a Will Smith movie, and so the solution is to shut the AI down manually while shooting waves of bad robots and high-fiving the good one. |
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| Getting started on life and whatnot |
[Jun. 18th, 2009|01:29 pm] |
The #1 missing qualification on my resume to become a game designer is actual game making. The easiest way to get that is to start modding. So that's what I'm gonna do, now that I have a computer powerful enough to run modern games in debug mode.
I just picked up a copy of Bioshock from the store, as a cursory Internet search revealed a couple balance mods, and I have a very simple but effective mod idea. Lo and behold, there IS no editor, and the current balance mods are the rest of an heroic effort changing hundreds of INI files alone. So this may be more difficult than I supposed!
Here's the idea:
( Read more... )
So I plan to get started on Bioshock: Exploration (tentative title) tonight. I'll let you all know how it goes. |
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| Show, don't tell |
[Jun. 17th, 2009|06:18 pm] |
Bad Sexuality is what happens in Fantastic Four 2, where Jessica Alba - and pretty much every character in the film, really - takes every opportunity to shamelessly show off her physique, to strike an attractive pose, to make a lame double entendre. The constant bombardment of "this is sexy" induces the opposite effect, like when you've read a word too many times and it suddenly becomes just awkwardly arranged letters that don't feel right. The movie comes across as strangely repellent, quite apart from the bad acting, bad script, etc. The only remotely sexy character in the movie is the Silver Surfer, who exudes the charisma of a man who is always in control. The film tells instead of showing, and to our post-modern ears this is an alarm bell.
Good Sexuality is what happens in The Lord of the Rings, where nobody ever talks about the heroes in terms of attractiveness, but the guys are still super attractive. How? They spend practically the entire film being passionate and charismatic, and the other characters operate under the assumption that they are irresistible. When the only single girl in Rohan develops a crush on Aragorn, nobody is surprised, Gimli doesn't elbow him in the ribs, and Legolas doesn't get jealous - the audience is tacitly invited to confirm their reactions (Viggo Mortensen = the hotness) instead of repeatedly told they are true. (See also: Jerry Maguire.)
I was going to talk about Star of the Guardians here, because upon rereading the books, this issue came to mind. I never noticed when I was reading the stuff pre-puberty, or as a puritanical teenager, but MAN is there some hot stuff in there - not explicit, of course, but very assertive writing of the kind that leaves no doubt exactly how mind-blowing that kiss was. The entire book is written in this style - as an opera, everything is Super Dramatic and has Terrible Consequences and Brings Back Memories, and love is a primary driving force of the plot. Instead of being grating, it actually works really well, precisely because the whole thing is on a grand stage acted before God, and everybody knows it. Including the characters.
When you are informed that Bobby had to break up with Susie for some Noble Cause, it's a tragic backstory that can give you a glimpse into why Bobby is so bitter now. When you are told straight out that Bobby feels like Sue is streaking through his life like a comet of blazing ice, which caught him up in its brilliance but left an empty void behind and the afterimage of light in his eyes, and he knew this would happen but he just couldn't get out of the gravity well, it's character development. But here's the key part: If Bobby meets Sue again, and he greets her like an old friend, then it's bad writing. Margaret Weis turns these histrionics into believable characters by actually following through on them: Sue shows up at the door after all these years, and Bobby can barely stand, and he isn't listening to a word she says.
Everyone is larger than life, but that's what you expect from a space opera. When your fiction includes The Starjewel, a gem whose color changes according to the current condition of your immortal soul, you had better get yourself some outsize characters. |
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| Recent M10 Rules Changes |
[Jun. 16th, 2009|11:08 am] |
A few days ago, a "sweeping" set of rules changes to the popular Magic the Gathering card game was announced, to much fan consternation. I follow Magic, although I refuse to spend any significant amount of money on it, so it naturally found my attention
I was going to post a big long rant about how fans are wrong 80% of the time and you should just ignore them (even if they're me), but instead I'll present a contrasting pair of articles. Most of the rules changes are universally acknowledged as good (for example, renaming the end-of-turn step to the end step). One rule has caused a little Internet flame war. Here's a quick explanation:
Card game designer Zvi Mowshowitz has a couple proposed alternative rule changes that attempt to preserve the best parts of both old and new rules. They're quite a mouthful, but a cunning attempt to have it both ways. Replacing a state-based effect - a Game Rule which happens instantly - with a triggered effect - a Game Rule which happens only if nobody has any more cards to play - is awkward.
Casual player and longtime writer The Ferrett has an enormous rant about how complicated Magic is, and how great it is to remove some of that complexity so people like his friend Melissa don't get confused. This is an extremely valid point, even for those of us (like me) who enjoy fiendishly complex, emergent rule systems. The designers do a fine job of making the game more abstruse and complex without the rules.
One excellent point is brought up: Magic cards are already incredibly dorky. This isn't an issue for me, because I'm nerd-tastic by nature: I like fantasy football better than actual football, Abelard better than Hemingway, prog rock better than post-rock. If you are worried that having to say your dragon "enters the battlefield" instead of "comes into play," perhaps you should realize that you missed the exit to Normalville about 50 miles ago. |
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| Star of the Guardians: The good parts |
[Jun. 15th, 2009|02:05 pm] |
1. Star of the Guardians is actually fun to draft. The rarity system is a cruel mistress, but she delivers lots of starships, crew and weapons at common. Thanks to the 3 different Home Systems, there are distinct and non-overlapping deck types even in a game without linear mechanics. Best of all, I have some 200 boosters that need drafting. Anyone up for it? I've got a couple, but more is always better. :-)
2. Because you start with one key resource (either Influence, Personality, or a Spaceplane Base), you can afford to include many fewer "lands" (i.e. cards that do nothing but help you play other cards) in your deck. This is one of the reasons I liked Lord of the Rings so much, and it gives me great pleasure to know that practically every card I draw will do something useful.
3. The flavor of the game is surprisingly close to the source material. In most cases, the card representing a famous person or event will conjure up favorable memories of that moment from the novels, as well as being a good card in its own right. Yes, it's all been shoehorned into a space combat game, but within that framework they obviously tried very hard to get everything working properly. (The one notable misstep is King Dion Starfire, whose ability will destroy his beloved mentor and guardian - but I guess you gotta make some hard choices when you're the King.) |
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| Coopting the Network Effect |
[Jun. 11th, 2009|01:16 pm] |
A recent Gamasutra blog post by Kim Pallister echoes what I've been saying all week: The most significant video game announcement this year is that Microsoft is bringing Facebook and Twitter to Xbox Live.
Many have tried to bring down Facebook, or to co-opt the next Big Social Network. This isn't going to happen unless your new service reaches a previously unserved market, like Facebook beat Myspace by offering local networks (everybody at my school). The network effect - the more people on your system, the more useful it is to them - naturally lends itself to a single dominant market leader and a bunch of failures and tiny, very specific offshoots.
Microsoft has its own, game-specific social network, Xbox Live, with a bunch of users and very loose friend networks, but no connection to real life. Connecting to Facebook is much smarter than building their own social network, the barrier to entry is lower, and it addresses one of the core weaknesses of the platform: Xbox Live and real life have no points of overlap, short of telling people your user name and hoping they type it in correctly.
It's hard to beat this kind of edge. Think about the common, obvious uses of such a program:
* I wonder what Bob is playing right now. Ooh, I love that game. Maybe I should join him.
* I wonder whether Jane has an Xbox. She does? Let's be friends!
* Someone posted on my Wall. Now I don't need to leave the Xbox to see it.
In a broader sense, it's exciting to see the weeds of 100 user names and passwords being pruned away a little bit. Maybe in the future I can log on to everything with one account! |
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| Star of the Guardians: Winning Combat |
[Jun. 11th, 2009|01:07 pm] |
The ships in SOTG have stats on a strict curve: 1 extra resource to cast translates directly into 1 attack + 1 defense, or 1 move point, or 1 support point. Ships can either attack straight across or support diagonally at half strength. Unlike other games with a field limit, you can stack ships behind each other, so your carriers aren't always under fire.
Generally, a ship's offense + 2 = defense. This means that to kill an enemy ship with an equivalent ship, you'll need one of the following:
- A weapon card, which will cause you damage if the ship dies
- A bomber, which can be intercepted by fighters or other hate cards and must be launched from a carrier and causes you damage if the bomber dies
- A damage or tactic card (aka spells), which is one use only
- A supporting battleship or gunboat
- Two supporting cruisers, one on either side
- Two smaller buffs (like crew or artifacts) which may or may not cause you damage if the ship dies
This is an encouraging list of options. Because your opponent will also be stacking +attack effects to get the same effect, maneuvering has a wargame feel: "I want to get straight across, not diagonal." The more durable options are more expensive or risky; there's only one standout, which you can probably guess from the list above.
Bomber squadrons bear the mark of having been nerfed into oblivion, because they are costed "fairly" without adding the cost of the carriers necessary to field them and the fighters to defend them - and the rules create an unintentional slippery slope where successful bombers can land safely if their carrier is shot down, but intercepted ones can't. What do you guys think of these possible solutions?
- Carriers now decrease the cost of squadrons played on them
- Instead of 1x/2x damage to targets, bombers deal 2x/3x
- Squadrons may land on any carrier or planet at any time after squadron combat
- Squadrons can attack starting at turn 1 instead of turn 4 like capital ships
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| Star of the Guardians: First Impressions |
[Jun. 8th, 2009|11:06 am] |
In an effort to get maximum value out of my recent purchase of the (justly?) forgotten Star of the Guardians card game, I'll write down what I'm thinking.
For non-gamer readers: Feel free to skip. There is nothing about my personal life and no funny jokes in these posts.
1. The rules are terrible. They're long, intimidating, and printed on the reverse of the game board so you need to buy 2 copies just to play your first game. Your turn has 14 phases, which I condensed to 7 in about ten minutes. In fact, it reads like the first draft of my rules for Romance, before I did some playtests and figured out the questions people were asking.
2. The art direction is nonexistent. The good artists deliver this great, pulpy sci-fi paperback vibe, which is entirely appropriate for a license based on sci-fi paperbacks. The bad artists bear a suspicious similarity to Austin's mockups for my Romance game, two years ago, as a first-year graphic design student. And unfortunately, the starships got the bad art and the supporting cards got the good art - so the Engine Failure card you look at for 3 seconds has a picture of a starship 10 times better than the starship you look at for 20 minutes.
3. The mechanics are interesting and exciting, but weird. It feels like a naval combat game transplanted directly to space: your ships are awkward and slow, with carriers in the back and cruisers maneuvering for a broadside in the front. Fighters buzz around, avoiding anti-air turrets, etc. You lose points when your ships die, not just when your defensive line breaks as in other games. Crew aren't just cards, they're a whole second resource, so you are constantly shuttling the admiral away from the front lines lest you be unable to play expensive cards.
4. Like Star Trek or other early card games, the power curve for rarity is off. Common cards are not only bad but wholly uninteresting; all the useful cards are uncommon, and anything you might possibly recognize from the source material is rare. This high barrier to entry is a big reason why so many card games fail, and it's subtle. After all, you want your rare cards to be super impressive, right?
(Note: Magic sidestepped this by being relentlessly thematic until designers realized how to share the love. Every single pack of Arabian Nights felt different from the European setting, even if the actual Arabian cards were terrible.)
5. I might do a Rotisserie Draft since I have so many cards. It works this way: Spread out an entire set, and people pick cards in order. Of course, nobody knows the game, so we could be drafting ourselves into a very deep hole! |
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| Person of the Month: Kenny Ortega |
[Jun. 5th, 2009|10:21 am] |
Like my usual featured artists, Kenny Ortega has a very short Wikipedia entry. A choreographer who also dabbles in directing, he is best known to my generation as the man behind Newsies, the first 45 minutes of which we saw about 20 times in junior high. 'Cause, you know, it's the only musical that the boys would shut up and listen to.
The guy has two current gigs:- Choreographing Michael Jackson tours
- Directing and choreographing the High School Musical series
I recently watched High School Musical 3, which completely redeems itself from the execrable 2nd installment. The plot is saccharine, the songs actually made me get off the sofa and sing along, the choreography is inventive and fun as usual, and the characters are all very pretty. Unfortunately, it betrays their theater roots: the final act of the trilogy is too long, too meta, and too devoid of any tension because it's already been established that our heroes are perfect in every way. (By minute 5, Zac Efron has a basketball scholarship, a date to the prom, and the lead role in the class musical entitled "Senior Year".) With all the repeat endings, mug shots from minor characters #5-12, and navel-gazing climactic musical numbers that would work on stage but not on screen. This is the kind of stuff people criticized Return of the King for, and that was a 10+ hour, billion-dollar epic; this is a bunch of made-for-TV movies with Kenny Ortega adding spice to make it watchable. |
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| Calling card game fans |
[Jun. 3rd, 2009|01:35 pm] |
I recently acquired a case of Star of the Guardians cards for $12 plus shipping. (A case contains 10 boxes of 36 packs of 13 cards each, so 4680 cards.) This game has been out of print since 1994, and it has virtually disappeared from the Internet, except of course for the guy selling it at rock-bottom prices. (For comparison, a case of Magic cards would cost $800.)
So I plan to get people together, learn to play, and do a Decadent Draft. Each player starts with a fresh pack of cards to open, takes one, and passes it on to the next player. If 2 people in a row don't want any cards from a pack, throw the rest into a big pile in the middle and open a new pack. Continue until you have 20-25 cards, then pad out your deck to 40 with System cards from the big pile and start playing.
Anybody up for learning a new game and cracking upwards of 2 booster boxes while we do it? Let me know. |
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| Mary Sue and personal vision |
[May. 29th, 2009|05:18 pm] |
Among fan fiction enthusiasts (already a shadowed corner of geekdom), the most pernicious and mocked of subgenres is the Mary Sue. A "Mary Sue" or "self-insert" character is an author's pet, either an author surrogate character or simply a new, spotlight-stealing character with a Tragic Past and Amazing Skills. (Think Wesley Crusher on Star Trek.)
But done properly, the Mary Sue trap can be avoided, and what you end up with is an author's personal fantasy that you actually enjoy stepping into.
In books, the best example is Margaret Weis' Star of the Guardians series. A cursory glance though the character name etymology confirms that minor characters are named after Weis' friends, the stunningly beautiful female lead shares her name and her love of chicken sandwiches, and the entire space opera quadrilogy is studded with references to her favorite books, music, and Greco-Roman myths. (There are dozens of Milton quotes alone.) But it's also the best work Weis has ever done, and by the end the reader is actually rooting for the heroine to rekindle her romance with the tragic anti-hero. The reason? Weis is actually a good enough author to weave the Mary Sue requirements into the plot. When she explains the supernatural powers our heroine gets from the "royal blood" nanomachines, the reader can cry foul - but 100 pages later, when the villain reveals he's got a better version and was just stringing her along, the stereotype is broken and the character trait becomes exciting.
In games, the Guilty Gear series of fighting games is drawn from the personal mythology of Ishiwatari Daisuke, a programmer who made a pitch so good they basically let him run the entire thing. He did character design, art, music, programming, and even the voice of the main character (the brooding, tragic Sol Badguy). Here he is protected from the Mary Sue curse not by the quality of the writing/design, but the fragmentary narrative of fighting games. Even if you find Sol's untold power and dark secrets lame, just pick up the storyline of the other 19 characters and go on your merry way. This guy brought his childhood dream to fruition, like a heavy metal J.R.R. Tolkien, and it's a joy to see what he imagined. |
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