Red Alert! Women and Mogs First!

I’ve really been trying not to let it happen, but god help me, I’m getting excited for the new Star Trek movie. No, not just excited. I’m on red freak’n alert with phasers set to kill. I can’t help it. The first couple trailers did nothing for me. The most recent one was like, hmm, this is starting to look interesting. Then came this week.

First, there was the screening of the flick in Austin. If you hadn’t heard about this, it’s all flavors and shades of awesome. People thought they were going to see a screening of a restored print of Star Trek II: Wrath of Khan. Instead they got six minutes of Wrath of Kahn before the film broke down. Everyone acts pissed off. Onto the stage walks Leonard Nimoy with a film can in his hand. It is, of course, the new film, which they then screened instead of Kahn. Pretty ballsy when you consider how much Trek fans love Wrath of Kahn. I mean if the new film blows, people there are gonna go apeshit. Fortunately, if you read Ain’t it Cool News, you know that the impressions rolling out of there of indicate the new flick is –at worst- a pretty decent Trek film and –at best- just a monumentally kick ass movie.

Yesterday I also read about a couple of short clips now making the rounds. I tried to avoid ‘em just not to be spoiled, but I failed my Will save this morning so now I’m going to challenge yours, because these clips are f’ing gravy. I’ve embedded the first one below. It’s Kirk and Uhura at a bar. If you’ve seen the most recent trailer, this is appears to be what instigates the bar fight to which the trailer alludes.

Movie Trailers - Movies Blog

Go ahead and tell me that Chris Pine is not James T. Kirk in that scene. Go on. I dare you because that s$%t is 100% pure Kirk awesomeness. If you try to tell me it’s not, then I’m calling Pine and he’s going to come kick you in the nuts. You and six of your buddies. Chris Pine, if you deliver in the rest of that movie like you do in that scene, you’ll have made a lot of Trekkies very, very happy.

There’s a second clip of Karl Urban as Dr. McCoy that is equally good. God help me, I’m getting really excited for this flick.

Friendly Fire in L4D

There’s a lot of comedic Left 4 Dead videos floating around out there, some pretty good, some not so much. I caught this one via my Facebook feed and there’s a friendly fire sequence in it that is absolutely hilarious (because it’s 100% true).

Mike – I don’t think it’s a coincidence that it’s Louis in this video that won’t get out of the damn way. I led the way in friendly fire incidents last night because of you, dammit! 

Guitar Hero: Metallica – WROCK! …I guess

Because Bill thinks that his supreme powers as chief wank of Gameshark content permits him to torture people mercilessly, I’ve been assigned to review Guitar Hero: Metallica edition.

I am not a fan.

Fortunately for him, I’m a professional, or at least professional-esque. Kinda.

The game actually made a decent first impression. When I reviewed Guitar Hero: Aerosmith, which sucked, I made the argument that if you’re going to do this sort of band-themed music game then you really need to play with the formula and revel in it. (Even if it is Aerosmith.) At first, it looked like GH: Metallica was going to do that. The first two-song entry sequence into the game showed all sorts of custom stage work for the band; pyrotechnics at just the right moment, a roadie bringing out a new axe for Angry Lead Singer Guy (I forget the name and am too lazy to look it up at the moment) between songs, etc. Then the game enters a sequence in which you create your own rocker (I assume in the same vein as GH: World Tour) and create a band that serves as the opening act for Metallica. 

At that point I was thinking, hey, they might be experimenting with the usual GH format here. I was intrigued. Yeah, not so much. From there it’s a steady process of five-songs of non-Metallica stuff with your user-created band and five songs of Metallica stuff with the “real” Metallica rockers. (I think Jeffrey Lebowski said it best when he said, “Bunch of assholes.”) It’s straight out of the Guitar Hero formula, dating back to the first game. Or at least it appears so thus far, I’m about 50-60% through the track list at this point.

As for the actual playing of the music. Dare I say that it’s improved? My impression of Neversoft-developed Guitar Hero games is that they suck at note charting, most importantly when playing at higher levels (Expert). It always feels like they’re just throwing colored dots around to make the song more difficult to play, with only loose consideration given to how the song should actually play. I’ve seen some of that with this Metallica edition, but far more than is usually the case I’m actually forgetting about where those dots are showing up and just playing the song. That’s the feeling I get when playing Rock Band that I’ve always thought made that game far superior. The thing is, I notice this most consistently when playing the Metallica content. When I play the non-Metallica stuff I tend to notice the random-dot feeling more, which makes me wonder if perhaps Metallica got a little more hands-on with the implementation of their stuff. Or it could just all be my imagination and I’m just a whore for Rock Band. These things are, bizarre as it may be to contemplate, possible.

Ultimately, if you like Metallica (a lot), and if you like the standard Guitar Hero formula, then it’s worth the price of admission. If you’re looking for a game that really plays with the GH formula and the concept of focusing on the musical content of (primarily) just one band, then look elsewhere.

Why Do They Do That?

"If you’re a hardcore turn-based strategy fan, feel free to disregard this review (Of Elven Legacy) and seek out the opinion of someone more schooled in the genre."

Seriously. Why? I guess points for honesty count.

Foiled Again

This cracked me up today.

Blood Bowl Homepage Ready to Go

And it looks great.

If you have been wondering "WTF is this all about?" because I keep harping on it, the new site will help as it discusses, briefly, the races and how they work.

Also -- MP Beta registration..hurry hurry.

Madden 10 Franchise Stuff

If you have not read Josh Looman's post about franchise tweaks -- check it out.

It's like the Madden team is slowly checking off every gripe I have had with Madden for the past -- well since Madden.

Player progression, rookies, player signings, draft logic -- it sounds good on paper, at least.

Let's hope the implementation is as good as the idea.

Madden WR/DB Interaction

Did you see this pic from Ian's Madden blog? Are the days of the Super Leaping DBs in Madden gone forever?

Because that looks fantastic.

The result of this play was an incomplete pass, btw.

MLB 2K9 / MLB 09 Stat Tests

I have a 5 page feature online today discussing the sim engine for 2K and Sony's games.

I simmed 5 seasons with each game and rambled on about what I saw.

One game saw Washington win three (3) NL East titles...

Seriously.

Vampires, Game Writing and Kitchen Sinks

I’m a strong believer that there is no such thing as a good pun, but I was going to achieve fame and immortality by titling this post, “Interview with a Vampire Writer.” Okay, that sucks too, but I like it anyway because I made it up and therefore -awesome. Then I went back and re-read the title of the post to which I was going to link, “Interview Without a Vampire.”

So much for that.

Moving on. Rock, Paper, Shotgun has an interview up this morning with Brian Mitsoda, a writer for the shoulda-been-a-classic PC RPG: Vampire: Bloodlines. I still need to track down a copy of this game and play it. I like vampire stories (Twilight excepted). I like PC RPGs. The only reason I never made time for it was its rep for being unforgivably buggy. Another one for the wasted potential Scott & Jean file, I suppose. –sigh- I’m digressing again. 

Anyway, the point of all this (hey, that only took four paragraphs to get to) -in addition to being an interesting read overall- is that Mitsoda has a great, great quote about the game industry’s failure to separate good writing from good gameplay. (Cue my rant about Fallout 3 winning a writing award.)  Here’s the quote, but be sure to check out the whole interview:

I think if critics are going to focus on a game’s writing, they should analyze not only the marriage of the narrative to the gameplay, but set some higher standards for what they expect from characters, plot, and dialogue.

A good scene, a good line, and/or a decent character do not make a game’s story great. Bad writing is bad writing – it might not matter if the game is fun, but don’t score the story higher because the game mechanics were tight or the setting was novel. Ultimately, the writing really isn’t that key to a fantastic game, but for those that do make it a crucial part of their game and hype it as such, those are the games the gaming press should be a lot more critical of. And for those that identify themselves as game writers, critics and fans should absolutely hold feet to flames ad infinitum, myself included.

What I want -- Addendum

I want to go into more detail on this topic later -- but this from from the OBR's story on Braylon Edwards:

"Edwards will be a marked man because the Browns traded their other big threat, Kellen Winslow. Winslow was shipped to Tampa Bay for a second-round pick in 2009 and a fifth-round pick next year. Unless the Browns improve, Edwards can expect to be double-teams virtually every play."

To me, this is a critical step that sports games need to take.

The computer controlled teams need to know who they are playing against -- regardless of the sport.

If I'm playing a basketball game and my team has one legit scoring threat then the AI should know this, right? I should see double teams or some sort of plan to slow down my main guy.

The CPU shouldn't allow me to win with my only player.

In a football game the AI needs to know that I have an All Pro/All American running back but no passing game. And I should be staring at 7, 8, even 9 men in the box until I can prove I can throw the ball.

If I have a great passing game and no run game the AI should know this too, and look to double my All Pro WR and take him away from me gameplan if an all possible or try its best to get to the QB to force him to throw early.

You don't see much of that in today's games.

And I really want to see that remedied.

Deep Route Football Journal

I am about to take over a really bad team in Deep Route Football and since I think this game is pretty freaking amazing I thought it would be fun to do a mini journal of how the game works and my experience as a new owner of a really bad team.

Once I get the team assigned I'll do a brief write up on the roster and my thoughts going into the live draft.

I also have some OOTP 10 league news coming.

Some Things I Want

• My old copy of Great Battles of Alexander to work under XP. It requires Windows 95.
  
  
• I'd like to find a game about Alexander that was not made during the days of Windows 95.
  
  
• I'd like a new college basketball game: one that is better than NCAA Basketball 09 but not as time demanding as College Hoops 2K8. Recruiting should not feel like work. Seriously what was wrong with the old NCAA football model? Fast, easy, and realistic enough. I hate recruiting in CH2K8. Hate it. I hate it because it isn't fun. And I'm not a fan of the NCAA model now either. I don't care about picking certain pitches to players -- just get the hell on with it.
  
  
• I'd like any time spent on Mascot games in any college sports game to instead be devoted to something that is not stupid.
  
  
• The GameShark redesign to go live. It's a ways away, but it looks super cool and I want it live. Now.
  
  
• I want to be able to finish Painkiller on Expert guitar. 70% is my high water mark at the moment. Green Grass and High Tides remains further out of reach...
  
  
• I'd like to sit down for 2 hours with the development team of Madden 10. Just me. No one else. No other media people.
  
  
• I'd like the features that are being put into Madden to go into NCAA: THIS YEAR.
  
  
• I'd like to get my sports column done that I have been putting off for a month. This one may actually happen...
  
  
• I'd like today's sports games to use board games as a source of inspiration, but that's a topic for another column.
  

Layers of Funny

I find this picture funny on a few different levels -- most juvenile.

Is she the funny part? Or the dude in the background and his reaction face?

Milestone Reached

It happened this week -- I have marked it on my calendar.

Ashley beat both me and Mary in a boardgame that wasn't solely designed for children.

Yes, she's won at games like Gulo Gulo and Chicken Cha Cha Cha and even traditional games like Sorry.

But the other night we played Qwirkle -- it's a tile laying game with various colors and shapes, and takes some planning, some luck, and some observational skills. We have played this game at least a half dozen times with her but it had been about 6 months since our last game and it was like the light came on. She knew HOW to play and not just what the rules were.

We did "help" her one time when she cost herself only a few extra points, but for the most part it was all her -- beating the two of us. I was happy and sorta sad. I don't know, I guess it signifies her growing up. She's already to the point where Dora is for babies (which is fine, I hate that damn show).

I have been waiting for her to age a bit so she can play some games with me and Mary and that time is fast approaching, it seems.

So is Teenage-ism.

Shudder.

Ouch

"In an April Fool's joke that left everyone but the contestant laughing, the Magic made a fan think he was shooting a half-court shot for $100,000 at halftime. The fan was blindfolded, and the crowd was told beforehand to cheer as if he made the shot. The young contestant, named Dan, missed badly but believed he won and danced around the court in a frenzy. Before being told it was a joke and showed the replay he said, "I just got laid off at work." He was given a 100 Grand Bar of candy instead but was not laughing. ... The Magic eliminated the Raptors in the first round of last year's playoffs, winning the series 4-1. Copyright by STATS LLC and The Associated Press."

Ha ha?

I Hate April 1st

Not for the lame jokes, the GOTCHA! moments that always happen when a prank works -- but because April 1st always shines a bright spotlight on my idiocy/gullibility.

The Vision Cone thing below? Yeah, that was an April Fool's joke.

It's obvious now that it's been revealed. Green being worse than yellow had both Todd and I chatting to each other, "WTF is that about?"

So yes, I went hook line and sinker and every year I get hooked at least once. It's my trusting nature. Yes, that's what it is.

God, I'm just that stupid.

OK -- real info from Ian. At least I think it's real! I admit I'm glad this was a prank, though. Josh Looman you are the devil.

Here's some real info about sideline catches or something. My mind is all a flutter.

Blood Bowl DS Screens

These look pretty darn good.

Madden 10 QB Stuff -- Heart Rate Increasing

A new Ian Blog Post is up today, discussing Vision 3.0 in Madden 10.

I'll get to that in a sec.

But earlier, back in Feb he also discussed new QB ratings in Madden 10:

Here's a snip:

Our next big change for the QB position was the addition of some new ratings. For countless years we've basically had Throw Power, Throw Accuracy, and Awareness as the only ratings for the QB position, so it's very hard to differentiate the players correctly and have them perform more like their real-life counterparts with just those few. For example, a superstar like Tom Brady or Peyton Manning would previously have a very high Throw Accuracy rating like a 98, well that had to be the case for a 5 yard screen or a 65 yard heave! Here are our new ratings:

1. Deep Ball Accuracy: Determines the accuracy on deep passes (streaks, deep posts, etc)
2. Medium Passing Accuracy: Determines the accuracy on medium passes (outs, corners, etc)
3. Short Passing Accuracy: Determines the accuracy on short passes (quick smash, flats, etc)
4. Throw on the Run: Creates a modifier to accuracy when the QB is throwing on the run. Every QB will take some sort of accuracy hit when throwing on the run, but a QB that has a high rating here will take a smaller hit.
5. Play Action: Determines the 'effectiveness' of Play Action for a QB, i.e. how often they can fake out or freeze the defense (which is obviously weighted against the defenders Play Recognition ratings)

With Donny's new philosophy on ratings, the addition of these ratings immediately made the game play VERY differently than in years past. Chucking up the deep ball with a QB with high throw power but bad accuracy is definitely a recipe for disaster!

Now, I have no idea of Ian and Team Madden can pull this off. I really have no idea what to expect.

But this is the number one issue I have had with Madden and NCAA's gameplay for years now -- QB accuracy -- or lack thereof.

This is a BIG, BIG deal. For me, anyway.

It says that these guys "get it" -- who knows how well they can do this stuff, but they clearly get it.

Here' sa quote from the Donny Rating post, "Every position and every rating has been re-scaled to expand the range of numbers we are dealing with. The Overall Rating for your average NFL player has dropped. Your Joe Average linebacker who was 80 OVR is now dropped down to 70. "

That is spot freaking ON.

And this: "In Madden NFL 10, WR SPD range is currently 70-100…CB is currently 75-99. So as you may or may not tell, the SPD range has been pushed down, in our opinions, to better reflect the “sim-gameplay” style that Ian and Phil have been telling you about all winter long. This SPD change has been updated for each position, so it makes a huge game play affect. Ian and I had a game the other day where Earnest Graham broke one up the middle for a 55 yard touchdown run… and he could not be caught!…E-Grahams’ Madden NFL 10 current SPD rating….80 SPD. That should give you a good sense of what is possible with the new ratings."

OK back to the QB stuff.

I don't want to cut and paste this whole thing -- you need to see the pic yourself, if you haven't already. Scroll down to the part about 'accuracy 'algorithms' right after the new ratings I posted above.

Will this fix the "every damn deep pass is right on the money" problem that has plagued Madden/NCAA since the dawn of man? I don't know.

But I love what I am hearing.

The new Vision cone is back and...colorful.


Here's the kicker -- this is all tied back into those new QB ratings. I disagree with making yellow more accurate than green as it flies in the face of all gaming logic -- green = good, right?

Who knows how all of this will mesh together, and while I have always like the cone in theory but I always found it clunky to use, the changes the team is making this year show me that they really are trying to take Madden to another level -- and I have not been this excited about an EA Sports football game since NCAA made the next gen leap and landed on its face...

Ok bad example...

My Scott & Jean: Wasted Story Potential (Part 2)

Yesterday I introduced the topic of the Scott & Jean and talked about how mine is wasted story potential. Today I bring to you my top five. Enjoy! 

5. West Wing Season 4 to 5 Transition: This is my all-time favorite TV show. I can watch the first four seasons of West Wing over and over again. And I have. You quote it and odds are I’ll know the line and be able to quote the next one. Chances are I’ll be able to tell you which episode it came from and, failing that, at least which season it was and where it is in the story. Pathetic? Yes. But, hey, some of you probably like American Idol, so I refuse to be criticized. Anyway, at the end of season 4, President Bartlet’s daughter, Zoey, has been kidnapped, he’s invoked the 25th amendment and –because of the VP’s recent resignation- the Republican Speaker of the House (played by the always awesome John Goodman) has assumed the office of the president. Awesome sequence of events (if, admittedly, a little contrived with the whole lack of a VP thang) . The problem? That was the end of show creator Aaron Sorkin’s run as the show’s lead writer. I don’t know the name of the person or people who took over, but they were not Aaron Sorkin. They completely and totally botched this beautiful setup and did not nothing with it. I’m sure they tried, but the enormity of the task crushed them like Nerds (the candy) caught in the soles of your shoe at a movie theater. The plotline fizzled. I gave up on the show about 10 episodes into Season 5. Still, at least it got four good years.

4. Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers. When it comes to film adaptations of books, comics, etc. I’m not a zealot. I understand details must change to better fit a different format. I was totally onboard with the changes to Fellowship of the Ring -no Tom Bombadil, Arwen’s increased role, Aragorn actually saying goodbye to Frodo- because these things made the movie better (or at least didn’t hurt it). For my money it’s as close as you get to a perfect adaptation. The Two Towers was not. (Nor was Return of the King for that matter, but TT was worse.) Peter Jackson had all the pieces in place to blow people’s minds and he blew it by wasting time with Aragorn’s “death” scene and fallout thereof, something that was not in the book because it’s a horrible idea and a horrible waste of time. Did anyone actually believe Aragorn was dead? No. And the changes to Faramir’s character are a complete betrayal of that character. At no point does Faramir covet the ring. It’s what makes him distinct and, dare I say, better than his brother. I understood the need to drum up the action and tension a bit by having him try to take Frodo to Gondor, but good god Jackson, you could have had it both ways. You could’ve done it without completely changing Faramir’s character make up. He’s a guy with huge daddy-pleasing issues. Have him say outright that trying to possess the ring is folly, but that he has no choice but to accede to his father’s will. It would still have been a departure from the book that would’ve brought the action scenes Jackson wanted to include, and at the same time not been a complete betrayal of the character. Finally, if I ever have to endure another extreme close-up or Liv Tyler crying it’s entirely possible that I will achieve posthumous fame as the first verifiable case of spontaneous human combustion.

3. Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith. Take a step back away from the keyboard on this one. We all know and agree the prequel trilogy sucked. And yes, that trilogy in and of itself is a walking testament to unfulfilled potential. But the third film, the one they had to nail, that was the king of it all. There is good stuff in that flick. Lots of good stuff. So much good stuff that you can’t help but want to drive a pen into your skull using a Fisher Price hammer (wow, the visual!) each and every time the film manages to suck you in only to have Lucas and Co. do their best Lucy and yank the football away. Take the scene where Vader get his suit. There’s Anakin on the table getting treated. We seem him as the helmet descends, the score is rising, and we see that perfect look of terror on his face just before it becomes a permanent fixture. Then what? He asks about Padme, is told he killed her and then staggers forward like frikk’n Frankestein and wails, “Noooooooooooooo,” like he just stepped out of a scene from an episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000.

2. X-Men 2 to X-Men 3. Fans of the X-Men comic know this one. We get X-Men 2, arguably the single greatest comic book movie ever, and it was finished with that absolutely perfect final shot and voice over in which the camera zooms over the lake where Jean Grey has died and in the water we see the shape of a phoenix as Xavier talks in the voice over about evolution taking a giant leap forward. No fan of the X-Men didn’t see that and not jump the fuck out of their chair and exclaim that they couldn’t wait for the next movie. Perfect fucking setup for the Phoenix Saga storyline. And then what happens? We lose Bryan Singer as a director. Since he was the driving force on the first two that was a bad omen, but you can replace directors. They’re not perfect. Hell, Singer went on to mess up the Superman franchise re-launch with Superman Returns. (Speaking of wasted potential, Kevin Spacey was a perfect fit for Lex Luthor. Wasted.) But then Brett Ratner was attached and you immediately had to know that X3 wasn’t going to fulfill the promise of X2. And it didn’t. In fact if there’s some kind of inverse black hole potential to expectations in which a high expectation can be changed to represent the exact same value but in a negative space, that was X3. I mean they made Dark Phoenix a side plot to yet another anti-mutancy magic syringe. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Dark Phoenix is a side plot to nothing!

1. Firefly: This show was on its way to being the best thing Joss Whedon (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel) had ever done. I really like those previous shows. At times I outright love them. But there’s no denying that they were the TV equivalent of playing golf. Many, maybe even most, of the episodes were kinda above average to average, with the occasional awful one thrown in for good measure. But the good ones, they were as good as TV got. Like a good golf shot, they kept you coming back. Firefly? Of the episodes produced (and released on DVD – go buy it) each and every one of them was awesome. I mean Jaynestown? Out of Gas? Objects in Space? Our Mrs. Reynolds, for god’s sake? Fox stuck Firefly in the Friday night death slot and cancelled it after… what? Eight episodes? It’s been years since I first watched Firefly and it still pisses me off to contemplate what could’ve been and wasn’t because Fox had no freaking idea what they had. “Two-by-two, hands of blue,” you motherfuckers!