This Would Be Cool

Question: Will this be the blow that Microsoft needs to take over the video game console market from Sony?

Comment: EA and their partnership with ESPN recently announced that their upcoming game "NBA Live 07" for the Xbox 360 would be more heavily integrated with ESPN content. Currently EA sports games give you the option of streaming news content from the real world on a ticker at the bottom of the game screen. Now the game publisher is claiming soon we'll be able to receive streaming internet radio content from ESPN Radio shows and even EOE (ESPN Original Entertainment) such as the always great PTI. The flood gates could certainly open as more developers integrate features like this into other games. And Microsoft, with a larger harddrive add-on, could make a hi-def internet movie rental service a reality for their mighty machine. It could be too much for Sony's PS3 to overcome if the big 'M' can get it done.

Snide Remark: "The greatest inventions of mankind (the airplane, the car, the internet) says little about his inteligence but speaks volumes about his laziness."

Mass Effect

Sony got the ball rolling in what is sure to be a long debate over whether games are art or not when they announced their "emotion engine" graphics chip thing for PS2, claiming the games will look so good players will be sucked into characters feelings and the games story in the same way movies and books do. That never happened. But over the span of the last generation of gaming boxes we did see graphics improve to, what we thought at the time, was near life-like representations of real life. Now with the Xbox 360 we're going even further down that path. And while this isn't the only key to gaining respect and "art" status for games, it does play an important role.

Later this year Bioware, makers of the smash hit "Knights of the Old Republic," will release their next RPG entitled "Mass Effect." The visuals do, at this point, offer, what seems to be, unparalleled realism, and the team making the game says they've gone to great lengths to create a dialogue system that rivals movies in dramatic effect. So...

Question: Will "Mass Effect" be the game that comes the closest or completely bridges the gap between games and dramatic art?

Comment: From my perspective, games have already achieved art status. To me, the team behind a game creates a world and a visceral experience that a user/player can only experience with a game, as opposed to a static view of a world in a book, play, or movie. The gaming world can be experienced in any number of ways, but the world also doesn't change. It's up to the user to choose how they interact, which makes gaming somewhat more exhilarating than watching even the best movie. Exalting this experience to a level that truly rivals other forms of media in the technical categories (plot, narrative, acting, etc.) is what we're really talking about here.

Snide Remark: If the game blows, "Mass Effect" may be the cinematic equivalent to "Heaven's Gate," with Bioware playing the part of United Artists.

Street Fighter II on Live Arcade

On the first Wednesday of August Microsoft will make the 90s fighting game phenom "Street Fighter II" available for download on Xbox Live Arcade.

Question: Will this be the killer app for Live Arcade? Will the online play not suffer? Will all the fighting mechanics and precise timing, etc., hold up?

Comment: "SFII" should finally ween people off "Geometry Wars" regardless of how good or bad it plays, which is kind of unsettling. If it plays well enough online, one can only expect the game to beat all or most next-gen games in sales for the month of August.

Snide Remark: The $400 dollar, most powerful console on the market, Xbox 360 being used to play a game that wasn't even cutting edge on the Super Nintendo... how the mighty have fallen.

Snakes on a Plane

Question: We can't help but assume that this film will probably be one of the biggest disappointments of 2006. There's no way it can possibly live up to the hype. So the obvious question here would be: what if it does?

Comment: There's a very, very, very small chance this thing will live up to the colossal internet hype surrounding it. If it does, it will probably become one of the highest grossing movies of the past few years. Samuel L. Jackson will be cast in every movie Hollywood makes until his untimely death due to bad ass-edness. And the academy will have no choice but to nominate it, and only it, for every single one of their awards at the Oscars in 2007.

Snide Remark: Yeah, the comment part kind of took care of this snide remark part, but come on; Snakes on a Plane?!

Is Bryce Dallas Howard hot?

Who? You know, the blind chick from the movie The Village. I can't tell what to think of her. Part of me sees a fair skinned, slender, red head. That's good. But part of me can't help but pick out the features of Howard blood line.
You may know her father Opie, er, Ron Howard. He's a director now, with such classics under his belt like The Da Vincie Code and Willow. He won an Oscar or something too.
But who cares, because the most interesting family relation has to be her alien of an unclie Clint. How about them genes. That's bad.

Hollywood and Video Game Movies

This article ran in The Daily Cardinal on Wednesday February 22, 2006.

The article link.

Many movies originate from another source: books, stage productions and occasionally even video games. So prevalent is the trend to base a movie on a previously existing story that screenplays for these movies have come to be recognized by their own Academy Award. And when judged against original cinematic ideas, these adaptations have faired quite well. Except for those movies based on games.

So why do movies based on video games suck so much? The reason is easy to identify, but the causes for it are a little more elusive. Don’t get me wrong: sometimes they’re good. Actually, that’s not true—they’re all terrible.

It’s not because video games are an unpopular medium. Video games out-gross box office receipts in the United States. Is it because video games aren’t really vessels for story telling? Games can tell stories, but compared with other media they are kind of flimsy and not very well-developed. But that’s not the entire problem: Good screenwriters could weave a meaningful story into the fabric of any fantastic situation, and it would probably work.

Movies based on games are bad because people making movies don’t really care about or respect games. The suits that green light projects, like the recent movie “Doom,” know that the films will make money no matter how bad they are. Movies rarely lose money when you factor in ancillary markets, international grosses, DVD releases, etc., so one more film out the door is a few million in their pockets at the end of the day.

The really great films, however, are labors of love. They have competent directors, writers that know how to compile a good screenplay, good production values and actors that can make us care about characters that were once polygonal and only shot aliens. Even an average movie based on a game would be a change of pace.

But instead of simple mediocrity, we get directors like Uwe Boll who have a penchant for making really, really bad movies based on video games. His last three films, “House of the Dead,” “Alone in the Dark” and “BloodRayne,” have been rated six, one and 7 percent, respectively, on RottenTomatoes.com. For those of you who don’t know, that’s bad. And he’s got five more game-based films in the pipe, including what’s sure to be an abomination unto the Lord in the form of a “Far Cry” movie.

Games and movies are good or bad for different reasons. Movies need to engage the viewer emotionally. After that, action and CGI effects, if necessary, are icing on the cake. Games on the other hand, are a lot like porno—it’s all about the action. Yes, there’s a scenario, but it’s a secondary objective. Look at “Tetris.” One of the most successful games of all time gave you no reason to play, it was just fun. Just because a game is good doesn’t mean porting it to the big screen almost verbatim is a good idea.

Blockbuster director extraordinaire Peter Jackson is acting as producer on the upcoming “Halo” movie. Let’s hope he can deliver an at least passable sci-fi blockbuster and avoid the eventual DVD being tossed into the bin with 1993’s “Super Mario Brothers.”

A FPS Retrospective

This article ran in the Daily Cardinal on Wednesday February 8, 2006

The story link.

With games like “Far Cry,” “F.E.A.R.” and of course “Half-Life 2” doing so much for the first-person shooter genre, it is easy to forget the true pioneers. The following games earn recognition not only because they are really great games, but because each one contributed something to the industry, either via software or hardware. Come back with me and let’s revisit the top five most important FPSs of all time.

5. Halo

There’s not much that can be said about this game that people don’t already know. Aside from single-handedly assuring us that the Xbox would stick around for a console generation, “Halo” also perfected the console FPS experience. With top-notch level design, an enemy AI that seemed too lethal to be a computer, a well-told narrative and a multiplayer component that people still play to this day, “Halo” has earned its place in history.

4. Quake II

Yes, the aiming system was a little wonky at times, but that’s pretty much it in terms of flaws. “Quake II” comes in at No. 4 because of the superior technical achievement it was in its day. Fully 3-D enemies, dynamic lighting, a mouse-based look function and scarily good LAN multiplayer simply outclassed everything else at the time. And the code was so well written, pocket calculators could probably have run the game. After this, game developers could no longer get away with a slapdash running-down-hallways simulator and call it an FPS game.

3. GoldenEye 007

What “Halo” finished, “GoldenEye 007” started. Up until Bond strode onto the N64, FPS games were the domain of the PC, but this title proved once and for all the viability of consoles for the genre. Due to its success, the next wave of game machine controllers came equipped with a second stick for controlling the look axis after “007” utilized the then-strange joystick so well. The multiplayer was so good that many more titles, like “Halo,” would include some variation on the game type. And of course four controller ports, which let more people partake in the fun, made their way into current generation systems.

2. Doom

Believe it or not, but before “Doom” FPS games were relatively tame. Nobody got worked up over the simple graphics, single plane levels and enemies that were pretty indistinguishable. But then everything literally went to Hell, in a good way. The graphics were sharp for the time, the lighting was eerie, the levels weren’t just rooms and hallways and the action was very intense. There was also the fact that “Doom” became one of the first video games to be a scapegoat for troubled, violent kids. That, I suppose, is technically bad, but it only goes to show you the power of the game and how important it was at the time.

1. Half-Life

No conversation of first-person shooters would be complete without mention of the incomparable “Half-Life.” Widely regarded as the greatest FPS of all-time, the list of qualities “Half-Life” introduced or improved upon are innumerable. “HL” did away with levels and made the game one long, continuous trek through its setting. Before, an FPS was usually not much more than a shooting gallery, but “HL” introduced a plot. The graphics were stunning, the controls impeccable and the puzzles (also rare in a FPS) were not of the mundane “find the key to advance” variety. But perhaps the best thing “HL” did was allow its source code to be modified and released in what is still the most popular online game ever: “Counter Strike.”

Along with Mario-esque platformers, first-person shooters are generally what people think of when they think about video games. If you consider yourself even a casual gamer and haven’t had a chance to play all of these titles do yourself a favor and get them ... now.

American Movie-Goers Are Dumb

This is a thought as to why people thought Crash is a good movie. If you want to read my review of it than click here.

As a general case, American theater patrons are kind of dumb when it comes to movies they exalt and movies they shun, and it's a simple case of education. People are afraid of what they don't know. This limits their intake of material to the familiar and safe. After awhile the pool gets smaller and smaller until every movie they see they like, and is therefore good. Then that day arrives where they happen upon something different and they've learned to like what they watch, and what they watch is always good.

When was the last time you saw a foreign film? Have you ever thought a movie was poorly made and not just a "I didn't like it" kind of thing? Can I look at top box office grosses for the year and accurately predict what you went to the theater to see or rented when it arrived at Blockbuster?

It takes effort to go forth, learn, and try new things, and most people are too lazy to try. It takes integrity to like bad movies and admit their bad, or think movies were really well made even if some of their ideas didn't appeal to us.

A lot of folks are content with slapping down their $7.50, buying their popcorn, sitting back, not thinking too much, and being entertained. And there's nothing wrong with that once in a while. It's good to see those movies, but it's good to see all types of movies. Everything is worth at least one viewing. Remember, judging a book by its cover and so forth.

There's a vast ocean of film out there for us to experience. With this experience comes the realization that what popular culture offers us at our local multiplex is often a dumbed down version of good cinema in order to cater to the lowest common denominator.

I understand not all people are, or have the desire to be, cinephiles. However, I cannot stand anybody that cannot differentiate between good and different. This entire post was prompted by my recent viewing of Crash and realizing most people liked it. Sorry, let me rephrase; most people thought it was a good movie. It's different than a lot of stuff typical Americans see, so I can understand the initial impression people have. But if they were educated in the manner I have discussed above they'll see a movie with a poor screenplay, complete lack of direction, and poor acting.

I urge you to try something new. Go rent something you've never heard of. Try something from a different country. I don't care, but start to educate yourself. And if not for the merit of learning about new things than remember that variety is the spice of life.