By Garheade
I read an interesting article over at Time.com today: (http://techland.time.com/2012/04/30/how-the-software-industry-is-being-reborn/ ). It covers how Android, iOS and Windows 8 Metro are changing the way the computer industry looks at itself. The invention of touch interfaces has forced the Software Industry to completely change how its interfaces work. I, for the most part, believe that Ben Bajarin is right insofar as the software industry is having to rethink its processes. I also think he misses one major issue that has not yet been addressed: the issue of the Operating Systems not being flexible enough to consider them “Reborn”
Windows 8 Metro
All of these major players still assume business as usual. It’s still a market where buying one operating system only works on one device. Thanks to this fact, you must always purchase separate pieces of software to complete the same things. Amplifying the issue, each piece of software has completely different looks, different features and different ways to interface.
Take email, for example. On my Android device, I use the default Gmail Client. I can swipe side to side to move between emails in my inbox. Yet on my iPad, even in Google’s own iPad app, I have to navigate via a list on the side of my screen, no more swiping side to side. Then to amplify the issue again, when I get onto my computer and log into Gmail via my Chrome Browser, I either have to click on tiny little arrows or exit to my inbox to get to the next email. Heck, even when I had my Acer Iconia (Android) tablet, I was missing that same functionality.
I’m not trying to say that I want a clone of the tiny Gmail client on all of my devices. I’m more than happy to see the extra space of the larger devices used effectively but the basic functionality of the smallest app should carry to the others. I want to be able to click and drag side to side to move between emails no matter what device or operating system I’m using. We see this with almost every piece of software from device to device.
Making things worse, each Operating System reacts differently to each touch. Each method of data transfer different, some use usb, some sync to the cloud and some to even more limited media like cards or dvds. This causes each Software Company to have to create and maintain different code bases, interfaces and file formats. Even more frustrating, it forces them to chose which operating systems to create software for and which ones to ignore.
The fighting over copyrights has to end, it only encourages interfaces that are exclusive and incompatible. If I sit at an iMac, I should be able to use the same controls as when I sit at a windows machine, or when I pick up my phone or my tablet.
This alleged reboot of the software industry that Time.com refers to is nothing more that a repeat if the .com bust. It’s big companies forgetting that if they make an app that works the same way across all devices and interfaces, they could actually make things easier on themselves and make more money. It all comes back to having to create multiple code bases for each device.
The real innovator, the person or team that is going to lead the next tech boom, will be the one that comes up with a way to overlay all of the different operating systems. The person that can modify Windows 8 Metro to work just like my Android Phone and my Android Phone to work just like my iPad. The person that creates this overlay and says “Here is the standard for all of my devices, feel free to make it yours”. The person will be the richest and most famous person in the world.
By Matt
Several weeks ago, I went with a friend to see Lionsgate’s film adaptation of the Suzanne Collins Young Adult phenomenon, The Hunger Games. Neither of us had read the book or it’s sequels, so we went in with blissfully few expectations. So, as with my previous look at The Lorax, this will be a review of the film on its own cinematic merits, rather than as an adaptation of something else. While I don’t deny the importance of the original work to the quality of the adaptation, good movies is still good movies, and bad movies is bad.
Which one is The Hunger Games? I’ll say right up front that the “Young Adult” lable immediately puts a bad taste in my mouth. It continues to do so despite pleasantly surprising me in our last several encounters. I’m probably stuck on semantics. “Young Adult” wasn’t a thing when I was a young adult. Let me head off the dinosaur jokes and say I thought reading Jurrasic Park in the sixth grade made me pretty cultured. We’ll gloss over my obsession with The Vampire Chronicles in my mid teens.
At least those vampires didn’t sparkle… mostly…
Ahem. Back to The Hunger Games. I will admit there were several moments, most of them early on, that grabbed and sustained my attention throughout the film. The overall concept does stand a little too obviously on the shoulders of giants, though, and there were almost too many subplots to keep track of. Almost. It being part of a series, loose ends were left dangling all over the place, but the overarching question of “how does the protagonist manage to not die” did get a nice, tidy end cap.
It is surprisingly difficult to pick a single element of the film as it’s top achievement. The cast was a mix of talented newcomers and unexpected veterans, the special effects were quite special (if occasionally nonsensical), and the cinematography moved between jarring and steady with enough control to acknowledge the importance of film craft without detaching us completely from the action. I could have done without the “cinéma vérité” shaking camera of the opening sequence, but Hunger Games quickly realized it wasn’t Children of Men and eased off the not-quite-steadicam.
Ultimately though, I was most impressed by the flow of the film. From scene to scene, I never felt like the plot had been lost. On the contrary, the story dealt with its previously mentioned subplots in a way that invited intrigue without detracting from the major issues at hand. My only concern with the pace of the film has more to do with the choice of title. While everything in the film does relate back to the titular Hunger Games, the actual event doesn’t commence until what I felt was fairly late in the story. As I said, however: I never felt like a cut-away was unnecessary or that any scene dropped the plot. Besides, “A Lot of People Talking About Bloodsports, Followed by Some Actual Bloodsports” hardly rolls of the tongue. It’s probably a question for the book’s editor as much as anything.
The design of Hunger Games is also a particular treat, and is the most likely front runner for potential awards. While I never got a clear mental picture of the utopian super-nation setting beyond “a central city with things getting progressively less modern from there,” the visual cues signal transitions in mood and social climate with italicized punctuation. The painted, almost plastic faces of the opulent/decadent seat of power harkened back to Blade Runner, as if Ridley Scott had been on hourly shots of Prozac. Meanwhile, the contrasting rural design of the outlying cultures drew a direct correlation in my mind to Joss Whedon’s
Firefly/Serenity property, although I don’t recall seeing any brown coats.
I’m not accusing The Hunger Games of theft or plagiarism: I meant it as a compliment. At a certain point, though, I did begin to feel that the historical references and allusions were a little too common for coincidence. The chariot sequence harkened back to the Fall of Rome so blatantly, it felt more like parody than reference. Casting reality tv in the same light as gladiatorial violence, though, drove the point home hard enough to make me fear for my retirement fund. I did think the nod to Socrates near the end of the film was subtle and well played, though.
The book, which I have not read, has been drawing a noticeable degree of heat for being similar in theme and plot to Koushun Takami’s Battle Royale, which I have also not read. As I have neither a dog nor an underprivileged adolescent in that fight, I’ll refrain from comment. I do think there are plenty of places where other stories, historical figures or events will come to mind, but in all fairness that is next to impossible to avoid. This all assumes, of course, that what I saw as references were all intended that way. I could have easily substituted Apartheid or post-Civil War US Reconstruction for Firefly, if I wasn’t such a nerd.
Sorry, I meant geek. *rimshot*
I could ramble on, but I’ve covered all of the major first impressions that stuck out to me. The Hunger Games feels a little too over the top at times, and come across as occasionally unoriginal or extremely clever depending on the viewer’s general optimism. Even so, speaking as one completely uninitiated to the franchise and a few years outside the demographic, it was surprisingly entertaining and easy to watch. It isn’t big on moral ambiguity, so whatever philosophical questions it raises don’t get examined from too many angles, but it’s still a fun evening out for adults. How much more entertaining it is for ‘Young Adults,’ by comparison, is something I’m too old and crotchety to guess at.
By Matt
Several classic Dr. Seuss illustrated tales have been adapted for the big screen in recent years. For the most part, I’ve opted to leave my childhood memories intact by avoiding them. Recently, though, a group of friends tricked me into seeing Universal Pictures’ The Lorax. I doubt I fall within the target demographic, and I realize I have a massive superiority complex about children’s entertainment, but I still can’t objectively call The Lorax flawless. For it’s few minor quirks, though, I was pleasantly surprised.
I’d like to add a quick caveat before moving ahead with this review. The Lorax has received heavy criticism for it’s treatment of Dr. Seuss’ original and for dwelling too long on the underlying theme of natural conservation. I did not refresh my memory on the illustrated book before or after seeing the film, nor have I done so in preparation for this review. Whether I agree or dispute my predecessors is entirely incidental. I am conned, here, with the film as it stands on its own merits. That may not always be the case, but I felt it was worth mentioning.
If The Lorax has one crowning achievement, it would have to be the animation. While not the most visually entertaining film I’ve seen in recent years (that honor, for reference, goes to Pixar’s Up), The Lorax was excellently crafted. It could be argued that Illuminated Entertainment, creators of 2010′s Despicable Me, were working with can’t-miss material, but it doesn’t seem fair to dismiss their work translating Seuss’s flat illustration work so offhandedly. Besides, I still can’t bring myself to risk certain live-action adaptations…
It’s not so simple as saying the animation was solid, however. While I felt the characters were particularly well executed, the environments of The Lorax, for all their Seussical surreality, didn’t feel all that well integrated into the film. To be sure, there were several moments where the world took center stage. The multiple “escape from Thneed-Ville” sequences stood out as particularly creative, but it seemed like the film moved back and forth from action-sequence to narrative exposition a few too many times without sufficient blending of the two.
The handful of POV sequences, mostly chases late in the film, also disappointed. While well done, they screamed “3D GLASSES” a little too loudly, and the filmmakers had already established they could create highly entertaining visual action without resorting to such blatant gimmicky salesmanship. In all fairness, I’ve never been a proponent of 3D cinema as the technology currently stands, and saw The Lorax on a normal screen with my normal eyes.
Going back to the characters, though, the best animation work of all time would fall flat without a strong cast to back it up. I’m very pleased to say I don’t think The Lorax could have possibly been better cast, especially in the context of 2012. Placing pop culture icons Zac Efron and Taylor Swift opposite each other as the film’s love interests made perfect sense, and probably made the film more accessible to it’s younger target audience than some of the heavier-hitting roles like Danny DeVito as the titular Lorax and Betty White as Efron’s deceptively sharp grandma. The long and short of it is, the casting director mixed pop-celebrity with veteran entertainment in excellent measure. More impressively, none of the performances felt miscast or poorly acted, except for the surprisingly high pitched air-delivery man. Maybe that’s just me.
If I hammered too heavily on the environments earlier, I apologize. The world of The Lorax may have felt a little bland here and there, but was never a serious distraction. The music sequences, by contrast, gave rise several times to confused discussion amongst my theater-going group. The lyrics were unchallenging and repetitive, but that’s easily forgivable in a childern’s film. The issue, as with the start-stop action sequences, was the integration into the film as a whole. The Lorax was not billled as a musical, and doesn’t feel like one. It’s simply an animated comedy with a few songs randomly thrown in for no apparent reason. The introductory number made sense, but the gaps between songs were considerable, and each song after the opening left me wondering why we were suddenly watching a musical number. The heightened energy of the music gave the animators an excuse to get even more surreal and engaging with the environments, though, so that was good.
All in all, I thought The Lorax was a very amusing cartoon with a lot of nicely entertaining moments and a well-placed cast. It had some issues with overly divided sequencing, but never really ‘failed.’ Ultimately, though, I’d suggest it’s definitely more for the kids than the parents. Nothing wrong with that.
By Garheade
One day, while telling a friend that I was bored and needed to find a new game, he jumped up and told me that I needed to try Dave’s Galaxy. So I wandered over to http://davesgalaxy.com and read the home page… Beer and Pretzels? What the heck is that? It piqued my interest, so I created an account and began working my way through the tutorials. After just a few days I couldn’t wait for my daily turn report to show up in my email: I was hooked. Each day, planning trade runs, taking over planets, making friends and even getting attacked once. Dave’s Galaxy is a game that unfolds slow but gets you hooked right away. Each day (or turn) brings a new chance to expand your empire.
With entertainment like this, The Greater Geek had no choice but to find Dave’s corner of the internet and force him to answer a few of our questions.
The Greater Geek: Your name?
Dave: David Case
TGG: What you do for a living?
Dave: Dave’s Galaxy, occasional consulting. I used to work for a glass panel avionics company, keeping aircraft from plummeting out of the sky.
TGG: How old are you?
Dave: 39
TGG: What made you think of Dave’s galaxy?
Dave: The original germ of the idea came from a bbs door game I used to play (slow turns, stars scattered across a map, variable travel time based on distance), Some mechanics cribbed from Larry Niven and Vernor Vinge novels (planet connections, mechanics that may be present or absent based on star density, etc…). I always wanted to algorithmically generate a galaxy, so that’s in there too.
TGG: When did you first start working on Dave’s galaxy?
Dave: The end of 2008 I think? It took about 2 years before it was playable.
TGG: How many times did you rewrite the game before you decided to
release the game to the public?
Dave: 0 rewrites, the basic mechanics worked almost exactly as I intended (I am always refining the game however; adding improvements, fixing bugs, etc.)
TGG: Do you have other contributors?
Dave: A little help here and there.
TGG: Care to share who?
Dave: My wife has contributed some graphics (maybe 10% of the total art)
A friend of mine administers the bug tracker and git repo.
Another friend is my business partner when I need one.
TGG: Explain Dave’s Galaxy to us?
Dave: It’s a grand scale 4X (Explore, Expand, Exploit, Exterminate) strategy game that plays in a web browser. It’s HTML 5 based, using SVG, and does not require Flash to play. All players are on the same map, which is made up of 650,000 stars in the shape of a spiral galaxy. It’s turn based, with one turn per day. The turns run fairly slowly, and most players only spend 10-20 minutes per day on the game. The slower pace enables more contemplative game play, and takes the place of grinding mechanics in other games. The game unfolds over months of real time and is open to many different styles of play.
TGG: Dave’s Galaxy is fairly simple to learn and understand, was this deliberate or just a side effect of the mechanics you chose to implement?
Dave: Hehe, I hope it’s deliberate, I get people who come up to me at conventions and say it looks horribly complex. I like simple but deep systems, and following logical consequences of the given mechanics. When faced with a decision that would result in the player having to manage something that isn’t ‘fun’, I try to make it automated. A lot of people want very finely grained controls on trade fleets, but having to manage several trade fleets would very quickly get tedious, so I try to automate the process as much as possible, and simply let trade fleets run autonomously.
TGG:How many players are registered in Dave’s Galaxy?
Dave: 832 (with some duplicate accounts)
TGG: Each day, Dave’s Galaxy is closed to run the “turn”. What
processes are actually being run during this time?
Dave: Haha, it should run concurrently in the background, but I’m a victim of my own success, and it currently runs out of memory if I leave the game running, so I put up a page saying the turn is running. I’m working on fixing the current problem, but inevitably something else will come up that stops the turn from completing when it normally should, so I’ll be back to putting up the ‘Turns Running!” page again. I’m starting to think about opening a second galaxy (Frank’s Galaxy?) to handle the overflow. I haven’t finished optimizing the turn yet, I’m sure there are improvements to be made.During the turn, the game universe gets updated — the fleets get moved around, the planets produce resources, what player/planet/fleet can see what other player/planet/fleet is determined, etc.
TGG: Do you consider the game “complete” or are you hoping to add more to the game?
Dave: Oh lord no, I have a list as long as my arm, and I’m always adding new stuff to it.http://www.davesgalaxy.com/roadmap/
TGG: What would you like to see added?
Dave: More stuff for experienced players to do, people tend to get bored after 6 months or so. Which very nicely models the birth/expansion/decline of civilizations, so I don’t feel bad when people stop playing — it just means there’s some unclaimed territory that can be picked up.
TGG: When coding I have a habit of inserting odd comments in hopes that
someone looking at the code latter may get a laugh. Have you done this?
What is the silliest comment you’ve ever placed in code?
Dave: I have an ascii representation of a man making love to an IRC channel hiding in my source code.
TGG: Boxers or briefs?
Dave: Boxers. Well, boxer-briefs. depends.
TGG: Favorite game? (not Dave’s Galaxy)
Dave: Ooooh, tough one. Settlers of Catan? The original Grand Theft Auto, Road Rash (Amiga version)
TGG: Favorite beer?
Dave: I live in Portland, that question could start a brawl up here… Ummm, Black Butte Porter, anything made by HUB (The owner used to be my neighbor)
TGG: Comics or Novels?
Dave: Comic — Cerebus, Novel — hmmm most anything by Varley, Vinge, Stephenson…
TGG: Favorite TV show
Dave: The Wire (thinking about a top down Baltimore drug trade game — “Omar’s Comin!”)
TGG: Ever listen to podcasts?
Dave: Occasionally, I should listen to more.
TGG: Which ones?
Dave: Mostly NPR shows I missed during the week.
TGG: Paper or Plastic
Dave: Haha, the city has banned plastic, so paper.
TGG: Greatest evil in the world?
Dave: Zynga.
TGG: How much does Dave’s Galaxy cost?
Free to play, but please make a donation if you feel guilty, I have t-shirts!
By Matt
Some weeks ago, I made an unplanned trip to the cinema to see Universal Pictures’ Safe House. About two hours later, I walked away feeling entertained, but not quite as electrified as I expect espionage action-thrillers to make me. The film wasn’t a disappointment, nor did it fail to live up to it’s promotional materials; I enjoyed the experience, in point of fact. I’d simply suggest that the story, or more specifically the events of the story, were mildly predictable. More on that later, though.
Before I give the false impression that I don’t recommend seeing Safe House, several aspects of the film were carried out with exceptional care. Chief among these, somewhat obviously, were the various performances. Denzel Washington’s merits as an actor are above reproach, and Ryan Ryenolds has been busily establishing a name for himself across several genres in the last decade. These two carry us through the bulk of the film with minimal discomfort, although the rest of the cast does feel generally disconnected from the flow of the narrative as a result.
In all fairness, the film treats the isolation of the two leading men as a major plot point. Still, even Jason Bourne, action-spy archetype that he is, seemed more connected to the world and people around him than Reynolds and Washington. Again, though, I don’t mean to suggest I found fault with either performance. Their repartee and interdependent character development was both a major selling point and the highlight of the film.
The rest of the cast, which included veteran playwright Sam Shepard, carried on as convincingly important and harried members of the intelligence community, but fell a bit flat. Safe House is billed as a story about espionage and betrayal, so there’s a reasonable expectation of double-crossing and so forth, but the intrigue raging on behind the scenes of the main characters’ fight for survival hardly measures up to something like Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. Then again, it’s probably unfair to compare an action flick to a deeply subdued adaptation of an espionage classic.
The pulse of the film, moving between physical and political action as it did, was quite pleasing. All too often, filmmakers mistakenly believe a film with guns, cars and explosions must be bursting with them in every frame. Safe House, while choc-full of all three, moves in and out of a sort of rolling blitzkrieg without ever dropping the ball. Even those moments free of gunshots and Denzel Washington (or at least his character) performing light parkour remain tense and intriguing. While Safe House succeeds as a “blink and miss it” experience, the producers understood that “action” and “suspense” can take various forms.
Again, the major flaw with Safe House is an inability to keep the audience guessing. Taken by itself, it does well enough as a who-dunnit with a twist, but in the context of contemporary cinema, with the two titles I’ve already compared it to and however many others I might have missed in recent years, I would suggest audiences are too keyed into a mindset which expects good guys to be bad guys. While there’s nothing wrong with the unfolding of Safe House‘s storyline, I caught myself thinking “yep” once too often.
Some things, like “that friendly guy just bought it” are forgivable tropes of action cinema. Others, like the all-important reveal of the “who”s and “why”s slightly before the climactic action sequence, could and should have been concealed with much more care. Maybe it was the disjointed, flat characters surrounding but not interacting with Washington and Reynolds. Maybe it was the writing team expecting the explosions to be more distracting than they were. Maybe I just wanted to see Reynolds’ girlfriend, played by French actress Nora Arnezeder, in her underwear more than just the one time. Whatever the case may be, I’m sorry to say my eyes rolled a little when the veil was lowered.
While the rising action was predictable, I will say the climax and dénouement of Safe House were at least well crafted. By the time the credits rolled, there were no loose ends left dangling, and I felt like they’ed all been tied up in the most ideal way possible. I use that phrase because the story, to it’s credit, leads the audience to expect an “all or nothing” finale, but offers an intensely satisfying conclusion instead.
Actually, if I may offer a partial retraction, it offers an intensely satisfying conclusion “until.” Without divulging the film’s secrets, I got the feeling that the finale was meant to remind audiences of recent major events, but pulled it’s punch at the last possible second. Suffice it to say people like Julian Assange aren’t nearly as cool as Denzel, Reynolds, or anyone else in Safe House, for that matter.
Do I want my money back? No. Would I see it again? I might, if I were out with friends who hadn’t and didn’t want to get stuck a debate over underlying motivations. While it makes an attempt shock and surprise, Safe House doesn’t pack the kind of mind-bending misdirection that invites intense analytical scrutiny repeat viewings. Get in, be entertained, and get out.
By Garheade
I’ve been reading A Song of Ice and Fire by George R.R. Martin, and after only three books, I’ve decided to never pick up another book by Martin again. Each time you pick up one of his books you have get a back support brace. I mean, really, these things are heavy! I’m not one to shy away from a large book (heck I’ve read all of Tad Williams books for crying out loud), so the weight or size of these books isn’t where I have complaints. My complaints, after the pushing through the constant let-downs of all three books combined, have simply become too large to hold in.
My Complaint
Well, actually this complaint is more of a double edged sword that sets the basis for all of my other complaints. I really got into the characters of these books. I mean seriously, I felt for Eddard Stark (“Ned”) as he and his family are torn apart when he becomes Hand Of The King in the first book. I shook my hands in anger at how Theon Greyjoy treats Bran and Rickon in the second. In the third, I was so invested in one character that his death made me put down the book walk away. This segues nicely into my real complaints.
The Real Complaints:
Martin had me hooked, truly, I couldn’t put these books down for fear that I would miss something about one of these people I had loved. The problem was, something did… and it was bad. I don’t have a problem with bad things happening to characters, even main characters dying off, if it pushes the story forward or helps bring the story to climax. However, Martin, likes to punish and kill characters at random. Characters that have taken up a third of the three books are just *phlat* killed. No climax, no forward movement, nothing… I wasted 800 pages of reading a character’s story when he just dies for no aparent reason.
I can waste my time reading romance novels if I want bad endings or failed climaxes.
Well, I could actually forgive that, if each book could qualify as a complete story. This complaint is about how each time I near the end of one of the books, Martin drops from one character and jumps to another. When he jumps, he doesn’t leave a cliff hanger, he doesn’t leave a mystery, he doesn’t set the stage for the continuing saga, he just quits writing about that character.
What the holly hell!?!
Now, even this sloppy writing could be overlooked but there is one more final complaint: there is absolutely no direction to the books! We have the Lannister’s in Kings Landing running amok, the Starks all over the fraking place, Jon Snow and the Black up in the North with the Wild-lings, and then to top it all off, you have what (I have a gut feeling) should be a more active story-line with Daenerys Targaryen. How in the world can you be three books into a series and still have no idea who the main protagonists are?
With all of this put together, it’s simply become too much for me to continue reading the series. Perhaps some day, I’ll find myself desperate for another book to read and will wander down to the library, where I’ll pick up the next book in the series. But when and if I ever do start reading the series again, there isn’t a chance in hell I will pay for it. My final opinion? Forget the books. Record the series on HBO, then you can safely fast forward through the annoying parts of the book, though sadly, you’ll only be left with 15 minutes of video.
By Matt
Steam recently featured a major sale on everything relating to Deus Ex: Human Revolution. Being a fan of the series and an opportunist, I jumped at the chance and purchased a game and all of it’s downloadable content for the first time ever. DXHR, while not yet a year old as of this writing, is not a ‘new’ game so far as reviews go. Fortunately I have no interest in reviewing the contents of the game itself, except where absolutely necessary, so this should not be a significant issue.
I’d like to record my thoughts on a game title featuring optional segments, since it was my first experience with DLC, and since DXHR presents a few additional factors to consider.
First and foremost, while I might not live right on the bleeding edge of video games as far as actually playing them, even I’ve had the pleasure of playing the original Deus Ex. I haven’t run through the sequel, Invisible War, mostly because I’m lazy, but I do know the ins and outs since I’m a Wikipedia addict and despise suspense.
Seriously. It’s bad for the heart. My point is, since Human Revolution is a prequel to a series, there is a lot of information a player might know going in. At the same time, the player might be completely oblivious. To its credit, DXHR expands on the existing property without ever being too obvious about it’s precursor status. Aside from a few extremely oblique references to characters from the other titles in the main quest, the vast majority of (particularly blatant) tie-in material comes from the DLC.
I should say, here, that I’m lumping the prologue novelization, Icarus Effect, in with the actual interactive DLC. For one thing, I’m sure it’s available as an ebook somewhere. For another, while it carefully avoids becoming essential to understanding the narrative of the main series of events in Human Revolution, it fills in several gaps the player might otherwise not notice at all. For instance:
Remember when that one guy did that thing to that other guy then disappeared for almost the entire game without ever really explaining who he was beyond “the guy that did that thing for those other people we sort of saw once?”
Yeah, Icarus Agenda tells you all about that guy. Also, other people.
No, not those other people, although, maybe a little, I guess. I mean the other other people.
The whole franchise is obsessed with conspiracy theories. Try to keep up.
I found it particularly rewarding that, while several of the characters in Icarus never appear in Human Revolution, the larger of the two DLC packs, Missing Link tips it’s hat to much of the action from Icarus. Again, though, you don’t need to experience anything but Human Revolution itself to understand why the DLC is important. ML might make allusions to IA, but its self-contained story is engineered such that the uninformed player merely walks away with an understanding that the world around Adam Jensen is very complicated. Since that’s more or less the entire point of the Deus Ex intellectual property, it works.
The one thing I really didn’t like about the DLC, er, “qua DLC” of DXHR was the sporadic integration with the main game. In the case of the various preorder packages, a mission was added to the storyline rather seamlessly. I don’t know how an un-expanded copy of the game would handle the missing chunk, but I was pleased to realize my extra content was about to begin without any sensation of “HEY! Stop what you’re doing while we give you something else to do.” Except, now that I think about it, that’s pretty much what the extra mission does… whatever.
In the case of Missing Link, the much longer bonus mission, I was very displeased to see that, while the “when” was explained away with expert handling, the software stood alone as an entirely separate game. I’m sure this is not the first instance in recorded history of bonus content existing entirely apart from the main product, but I wouldn’t call Missing Link a full-on “expansion pack,” even though it does take a good chunk of time to complete. It certainly tries to fulfill the role of an expansion pack, adding new lighting effects, weapons, costumes and weather, but since the software isn’t part of Deus Ex: Human Revolution itself, all the new eye candy feels like one big moot point. I’d love to have seen those rain effects suddenly distributed throughout the main campaign. To be fair, it might not have been so irritating if the events of Link didn’t occur during the events of Revolution. I certainly didn’t stop playing the main game long enough to switch over just to experience the story in chronological order.
From what I understand, some of the DLC was aimed at addressing the significant public backlash against Eidos for outsourcing “The Boss Battles,” and not keeping close enough tabs on their integration with the rest of the game. I don’t know if patches or the DLC tweaked anything to alter that, although I doubt it, but I did pick up on the apologetic aspects of Missing Link. To be clear, Missing Link does not post any heart-felt letters of apology or super-destructive new enemies who blow over with the slightest application of some non-combat skill. It’s a solid experience in and of itself (although, see previous paragraph). Instead, it goes out of its way to allow a variety of play styles (one achievement involves completing the campaign with no upgrades or gear) and presents a “boss” encounter with options beyond run-and-gun.
That’s all fine and good, but I can’t say I ever felt like Human Revolution itself was forcing me to play a certain way or regret my upgrade decisions.
Amusingly, I did reach a point in my initial playthrough where I got fed up enough to stop, take a day off, and restart the whole bloody thing, but it wasn’t because I had reached a brick wall the game absolutely wouldn’t allow me to pass. Rather, I had reached an incredibly difficult moment where the option I wanted to take was simply not within my grasp. I realized later that it had as much to do with some experience points I’d wasted on upgrades I didn’t personally enjoy using as it did with a lack of grenades, but that’s also neither here nor there. Incidentally, as far as ‘boss battles’ go, while I realize there were story-critical choke points at which super-enemies had to be forcibly dealt with, I’m definitely of the less popular opinion that there were social and environmental moments which served as boss battles to anyone interested in overcoming them. PS, you’re freaking welcome, Malik.
Getting back to the DLC, the lesson I learned from my ‘complete immersion’ into DXHR is that bonus content works best when it feels like a reward rather than extra stuff thrown in. While I enjoyed the challenge and length of Missing Link more than the preorder mission, the integration of the latter into the main game’s executable file was much more satisfying than the start-stop-wait-go-back of the stand alone sub-title. The extra items unlocked by the preorder widened that divide, since I could collect and use them at my leisure during the main mission but not at all during Missing Link.
So, ultimately, do I recommend DXHR and all of it’s bonus features? I definitely recommend DXHR, although I’ll stop myself going on a tirade about some of the voice acting. As to the additional material, I would suggest it depends on the player. Narrative geeks like me will suffer through anything so long as there’s additional dialog or a few new paragraphs to read (Missing Link and Icarus Effect don’t disappoint there), but as far as needing to play through everything to get the full impact of Human Revolution? I would suggest that the extra content in this case is neither absolutely essential nor a waste of time if you’re interested.
By Matt
I opened Slashdot, scrolled all the way to the bottom (as one does) and saw the following:
I have yet to read this post. I have no idea what this post is about. If I were forced to guess, I would expect it to relate to the nature of zero gravity impacting combustion patterns, or somesuch.
As is, however, my immediate reaction is as follows:
In the absence of an oxygen rich atmosphere, or indeed any atmosphere at all, and the coldest naturally occurring temperature in the known universe, it must have been a really slow news day at NASA.
Or, for those of you with a less scientific mindset, “No $#!%.”
By Matt
TGG’s been on hiatus while some of us relocate in pursuit of career advancement while others stagnate in inadequacy, slowly devolving into puddles of misery on Twitter.
Er… nevermind.
While we’re still waiting to regroup, a news article recently evoked an indirect response from me. I wanted to post my thoughts for public consumption while they’re still relatively fresh. As it turns out, the idea behind the thought is likely not fresh at all. Having written what follows before bothering to see if anyone had already thought such thoughts, I’m pleased to see they have. At the same time, the unmodified official release of TF2 remains all-male, so the issue has not been addressed at the Source, so to speak.
Cheers.
***
I recently noticed a few waves trailing behind a young lady gamer who lobbied successfully for the inclusion of female characters in an upcoming sports sim. Details can be found at The Globe and Mail.
The crux of her argument was a player’s right to self-expression. She wanted to have a female character to identify with, despite the gender-segregated nature of the sport being represented. Quite a few questions arose from that particular story, but I mention it here as the catalyst for a thought I had some days later.
Caveat Lector: I’m a male who doesn’t play female characters when given the choice. Well, except in Resident Evils 1 and 2 where the girl characters had more powerful weapons.
I was playing Team Fortress 2 after having read the above story, with no loftier goal than enjoying the simple pleasures of fast-twitch cartoon brutality, when it occurred to me: I couldn’t play as a girl. This led to a train of thought that made me realize some interesting things about TF2’s gender representation.
It could be argued that the extreme uniqueness of characters are unnecessary on a purely mechanical level. TF2 seems to be a powerful example, however, of aesthetics directly impacting play. From the cartoonish, distorted humanoids to the voice acting and out-of game animated shorts, TF2 bends over backwards to make sure every player can guess what every other player is up to at any given moment. If I’m running around as a Heavy, I’m probably feeling overconfident, and probably have a swarm of other players behind me. Did I just run past you with an Engineer’s toolbox? Stay out of the Intelligence room. In short, I’ve found TF2 gives me a genuine sense of being represented at any given moment, even though I’m constantly switching from one representation to another.
Even so, my revelation pointed out that I’m content because my personal choice is the only option anyway. In retrospect, I’d go so far as to say I might not play at all if the cast were all females. I know several ladies who play TF2, but I suddenly wonder how many don’t because of that same logic.
Speaking for myself, “Gamer Girls” stopped being “a thing” for me at least four or five years ago, which would have been right around TF2’s 2007 initial release. Add to that the continued male dominance of the gaming world plus the Team Fortress franchise’s established player base and I suspect demographics were never a significant concern during TF2’s development.
I also wonder how real-world views on women in combat influenced TF2’s cast. From Samus Aran to Lara Croft, female protagonists are not without precedence, but I’m not aware of one in a game focused on tactical squadron combat against explicitly human enemies. Despite TF2’s cartoon style, the physics and combat at least hit at realism: the action is fast and often confusing, even the strong characters die quickly without support and tactical behavior, and no one is an invulnerable super hero, Ubercharge notwithstanding.
The real-world lines demarcating limits of active duty service for women are blurring. For what it’s worth, I believe that’s a good thing. Still most world powers still balk at deploying women to front lines violence. Even I don’t immediately picture females in such situations, although for me it’s more a matter of conditioned response than internal reasoning.
Everything now comes back to the young sports fan. Should combat simulation games exclude female characters simply because, on the whole, women aren’t stereotypically associated with the real-world equivalent? I’m not attacking Valve for TF2’s all-male cast. It’s a successful game and the only addition I’m discussing here would ultimately be aesthetic.
I will say I absolutely do not endorse the introduction of a whole new character class. For one thing, I would see it as an almost patronizing gesture. For another, TF2 is nothing if not well-balanced. I’d hate to see that offset without significant forethought. I would even balk at female personalities noticeably out of sync with the current game. Aside from being arguably sexist in her own right, a giggly “Valley Girl” type doesn’t feel like something I’d accept as plausible in the admittedly exaggerated TF2 world.
I suggest that the only necessary step to introduce female characters would be to create duplicates of the existing cast with feminine physiques. Someone once told me there’s a difference between masculine and macho, and I don’t believe anything about the TF2 is unalterably “male.” It follows, for me, that a boisterous, hulking, bloodthirsty Russian would be just as believable wearing a babushka as a 5 o’clock shadow.
As noted at the beginning of this article, the idea of females in TF2 is not actually new. The question then becomes: how would female counterparts effect other games? Titles like the Dead Space franchise and Deus Ex: Invisible War have approached the question from a distinctly either/or point of view. In spite of the recent “Fem Shep” fervor that I never fully understood, I believe they are to be commended for their presentation. As with my earlier examples of Samus and Croft, though, their emphasis is on the primarily single-player experience. Much as I usually prefer to deny the impact of context and circumstance in questions of gender equality, I think the question here arises from the multiplayer arena. It’s not a question of whether two video game characters are equally matched, but whether or not the players behind them are being represented as they wish to be.
Do I think every game should have to include a coed cast of player characters? Absolutely not, in so far as I’d never endorse mandatory requirements imposed on the artistic expression of game developers. Do I think games TF2 might be a little more entertaining with female options? If they were introduced in a way that meshed with the game’s established feel and charm, absolutely. Will I quit playing male-only games in protest?
Yeah…
No.
By Frank
I was listening to the latest episode of Starfleet Comms, an Eve Online podcast and we got a wonderful shout-out from them. We appreciate all the help we get from our fans and fellow members of the community! Thank you!
