Top 10 Projects I Would Make if I Controlled a Movie Studio

Let us take a dive into the world of fantasy, for a moment.  A world in which the impossible can be done.  A world where Hollywood isn’t a money-grubbing machine that no longer cares if they make products of quality, and instead just wants to make content that they can push out, just in time for the next product.  We are going to dive into this fantasy realm for a moment, and imagine that I, in my great creative mind, am given complete control of a studio and am allowed to green-light whatever I want, and have control over it to make whatever I want to be made.  These are the 10 projects that I would green-light, ranging from films to streaming shows.  I will say which is which as we make our way down the list, I promise.  Let’s get started.

10. Various Redwall books
Perhaps some of you don’t know about the Redwall series, by the late Brian Jacques.  It was a series that I grew up with, and part of me is kind of shocked that it hasn’t been milked to death like so many other childhood franchises.  I think part of that may be because these books are VIOLENT.  Each book is a self-contained story, with tangential connections to the others.  It is about little forest creatures who have built structures and villages and even fortresses.  They are in a world of swords and shields and the like.  It is a world without magic.  While prophecy plays into things, there is no magic.  Just little cute woodland creatures in clothes, cutting each other down with swords and arrows.  Not every story is amazing.  There are some that I think fall completely flat.  However, I would love to have some of my favorites put out there.  Ones like, Mossflower, Martin the Warrior, The Long Patrol, Outcast of Redwall, Loamhedge, and Rackety Tam.  2D animation would be best for these.  I am OVER CG.  I am so over it.  It’s in everything, and it makes things dated so quickly.  These would all be contained films covering the events of a single book.  The violence would be there as well.  Would it be weird to watch little woodland creatures cut each other to pieces?  Yes.  But that’s part of the fun.  Kids can handle this stuff.  It’s time we exposed them to more of it.

9. Pirate Latitudes
One of my favorite books by Michael Crichton, I think this fantastic adventure novel is just BEGGING to be made into a great film.  Instead of glorifying pirates, this book was actually very critical of the world they existed.  It also shows the historicity of how the line between privateer and pirate was thin indeed.  It was a violent and gritty look at the genre, but that was part of what made it great.  I would do this one in live-action, whit as much of the effects done practically as possible.  Again, fuck CG.  This book is begging for the treatment.  However, it may be better suited for a single-season streaming show than a movie.  Give it time to flush out the characters and go through the plot as thoroughly as possible.

8. Shadow Over Innsmouth
One of the most seminal works of HP Lovecraft, this is a story that, if in the right hands, could be a hallmark of great horror cinema.  A story about a detective coming into a town and discovering a secret cult tied into deep-sea gods, with their senior membership trying to cross-breed humans with the Deep Ones in order to create immortal offspring.  Cinema has had a rough time translating cosmic horror, but if we could find a director who will take the time to get the elements right, I think this would be a landmark title.  A slow burn horror film that shows how, as the detective gets closer to uncovering the truth, the more he is being driven insane by the forces at work.  This book is what got me to really think about religion as a concept, and I think it is past time that someone tried to make a faithful adaptation.  I would also want the effects to be practical.  Especially where the cross-bred people are concerned.  The twisted forms of the fish-like people there would be so grotesque, but fun to make.

7. Spider-Man Horror Film
I remember when I saw the trailers for X-Men: New Blood, and the concept immediately caught my attention.  A horror film with Marvel characters.  That’s inspired!  A superhero horror movie.  Now, the film we got was a giant pile of shit, but the concept is still fascinating.  There are a ton of heroes with a good rogues gallery to look at, but one that really caught my attention was Spider-Man.  He has two villains in-particular that would just be great for this.  The first is Kraven the Hunter.  A man who has hunted all animals on the planet, and has moved on to hunting the greatest game – people.  A film that really puts Spider-Man to the limit as he is being hunted by this man.  Seeing him treat people as cattle in this game of kill or be killed.  The second is (and I know some people will groan) Morbius.  I know, I know.  We all saw that terrible movie.  I’m talking about a version of this character true to his roots.  A genuine vampire.  A monster of the night with a body count that is astronomical.  If it could be a fun concept to play around with.  But something about happy-natured Peter Parker up against a monster who is driven to kill and who has no problems killing anyone and everyone who goes up against them would be a neat dichotomy to play with.  Especially if the gore could be kept in.

6. Remake of Congo
Do any of you remember the film version of Congo?  If you do…I’m sorry.  That film was ass.  The ape effects were so bad.  The acting was worse.  It took some really fantastic source material and just shit all over it.  Here’s the one time where I’m going to come out in favor of CG.  If we could take the CG from the Planet of the Apes reboot series and apply it to the ape effects of this movie, I think we could get something genuinely incredible.  But I would want EVERYTHING else to be practical.  So many movies don’t understand how the actual jungle works.  Actual jungle isn’t full of plants everywhere.  Actual African jungle has a high canopy, and dense, dead underbrush layer, where things suddenly grow the second a tree falls.  We forgot this, somewhere along the way.  I want this film to really show that what we think we know about this world is not correct, and actually do the source material proud.

5. White Shark
Probably a book you have never heard of.  Written by Peter Benchley, the man who wrote Jaws, this was a fascinating monster book about a creature that was part-man, part fish.  It had some amazing point-of-view writing sections where we get into the monster’s way of thinking.  We also have some great characters, like the dad and his son, and this deaf girl who the son gets a crush on.  There was a TERRIBLE made-for-TV movie of this, but I want this redone.  Especially with practical effects.  To make this creature come alive in all it’s disgusting glory.  It would be a monster movie from another era, but man would it be cool.

4. World War Z
Yeah, you all remember the film they did on this landmark novel by Max Brooks.  If you never read the source material, it probably seemed like another generic zombie movie.  But if you did read it, then it was a slap in the face of some of the richest and most engaging source material ever put to print.  The original novel was told from the point of view as a reporter getting the stories of those involved after the fact. In keeping with that, I would have this novel adapted as a streaming series, with each episode focusing on one of the stories.  This would allow the show to really get into each narrative and bring all the cultures and their perspectives to life in a way that the film…didn’t (and that’s being charitable).  This book could have been made into something amazing.  Instead, it was turned into easy to market, PG-13 garbage.

3. Batman, but with more or the rogue’s gallery
You know what the biggest problem with Batman movies is?  They use the same villains, over and over again.  This character has a rich, deep pantheon of characters to draw inspiration from.  It drives me nuts to think that we barely get to see some of the more interesting ones.  Characters like Babydoll or Scarface come to mind immediately.  The former being a woman who has a condition to make her perpetually looking like a child.  When the show she is on goes under, she tries to cut it with professional acting, but how she looks keeps having opportunities slip away from her, eventually driving her insane.  With the latter, you have a mild-mannered man who is driven to insanity by a ventriloquist puppet.  That one in-particular would be fun.  Especially if we really get to take the time to see him going insane with this puppet.  But there is a much larger rogue’s gallery that gets ignored, and I would love to see made into a movie.  Even better if it could be done with animation in that amazing art deco style from The Animated Series

2. Dragonriders of Pern – Original Trilogy
With all the classic books that have been turned into shows/movies that range in quality, part of me is genuinely shocked that nobody has tried to take a crack at this.  It is one of the most underrated fantasy genres, combining fantasy and science fiction.  It tells the story of human colonists in the far future ending up on the world of Pern.  However, when they arrived, they realized that every few years, a fungus called the Thread comes down from the red star and ravages the planet and them as well.  Over 2,500 years, they regressed as a society, until they were able to engineer dragons, who can communicate with people telepathically.  Thus were the dragon riders born, with the solumn duty of fighting back against the Thread.  It’s a fascinating series, that I think is perfect for a 2D animated series.  Otherwise it would be endless CG, and the budget would suffer.  No, let’s put the 2D animators to work. 

And the thing I would love to make most with control of a studio is…

1. Prey
My favorite book by Michael Crichton, now is the PERFECT time to make this into a film.  With CG where it is, it wouldn’t be a hard sell to make a film of this with the detail we would need for the nanoswarm.  But I would want to keep it true to the book.  I want to make sure to get the family element for Jack right, showing him as a stay-at-home dad, then show him coming back into this world of technology and fear of the unknown.  Plus, we need to get a guy who is a schlubby dude in his 40’s for the role.  Jack Forman was a man who is well into middle age and had gotten a little pudgy.  We need someone who actually looks like an everyman, put in a situation that makes them do extraordinary things.  For years, this book has gone by the wayside because the tech can’t measure up to how it would need to look for the nanoswarm.  I think we’re finally there.  Now is the time.  Another thing is that I would want to end this film on the uncertainty.  The fear Jack had that the swarms hadn’t been fully destroyed, and that he may be infected with them.  Too many films, especially ones for American audiences, have cliche happy endings.  I want this one to leave questions for the audience.  While I did say that the CG is where I want it for the nanoswarm, I would like to use practical effects for the swarm colony in the cave, along with the giant crystalline tree that they used to create the swarms inside the facility.  There is a great potential here that is not being realized.  Time to make it happen.

Until next time, a quote,

“It was so dumb, it was breathtaking.  I didn’t understand how they could have embarked on this plan without understanding the consequences.” – Jack Forman, Prey

Peace out,

Maverick

I Have HAD IT with the Democrats and their Utter Cowardice

So, for those of you who are either completely apolitical or live under a rock, Roe v Wade has been overturned.  A major blow to women of this country.  I have someone I once considered a kindred intellect who is all in favor of this.  Why?  Because, in her eyes, it should have been a state’s rights issue all along.  Fuck that.  She’s an idiot.  Fuck state’s rights.  Autonomy of a woman’s body shouldn’t be a state’s rights issue.  Conservative America has been partying since it happened.  Why?  Because we all know how they feel about women.  As Carlin once said, they want women to be a brood mare for the State. 

But this level of disgusting support of the destruction of women’s rights isn’t unexpected from conservatives.  They have made their disgust for women painfully clear for generations now.  No, the real group who has pissed me off in all of this is the Democrats.  The gutless, spineless, corpo rat Democrats who, within minutes of the announcement, were sending out emails to ask for campaign contributions.  The Democrats who said it is time to fight for women’s rights.  How?  By voting for more Democrats!  You are in power NOW!  Right now!  What are you going to do now?!  What’s that?  Nothing?!  Of course not.

Doing something would require the Democrats had a single shred of decency in them.  Had something other than gutless cowardice in them.  A compulsion to do anything for the right reasons.  But we all know that isn’t what the Democrats have.  Instead, they exist for the sole purpose of helping corpos get richer, and being a foil for Republicans.  They don’t have to even pretend to try to do anything to help actual people with their problems.  Just talk a talk that is different than Republicans and get all mad at progressives when they don’t vote for you, because didn’t you hear us talking about the things Republicans don’t talk about?!  Isn’t that enough?!

For me, no, it isn’t.  I am so fucking tired of this party.  Conservatives are already making clear that their next target is Obergefell v Hodges, which gave the gay and lesbian community the right to marry.  So what is Biden doing?  Why, he’s going out an auctioning the rights for oil development offshore!  Oh, and he’s going to Spain to meet the Spanish President and be all chummy with him.  What about Kopmala?  Well, she’s not doing a goddamn thing!  She’s talking a big talk on Twitter of how much the White House supports the LGBT.  Except, you know, to actually fight for them when it counts.  Fuck that, am I right? 

The Democrats has 50 years to codify Roe.  There was a super-majority under Carter, Clinton, and Obama.  Let’s discount the one under Carter, because pro-choice wasn’t nearly as popular back then.  So we still have Clinton and Obama.  What did they do?  Not a goddamn thing!  Hell, Obama campaigned on it.  Said that day one, he would look to codify it.  Not long after he is elected, it’s not a priority anymore.  Wouldn’t be the first time that Turncoat Obama would stab the people who voted for him in the back.  He was such a wolf in sheep’s clothing, and I’m glad that people realize that now.  Except for the pathetic centrist-liberal defenders who really do believe that all a Democrat has to do is not be a Republican to earn their vote.  These people are so pathetic that it blows my mind.  Brain-dead flying monkeys, as far as I’m concerned.

So they had 50 years, and did nothing.  Why did they do nothing?  I can tell you – because the Democrats know that underneath all the rhetoric, there is no substantive difference between them and Republicans.  They are all corpo rats.  So they have what I call “wedge issues.”  These are issues they use as a wedge to keep the people from uniting against them.  Wedges to drive apart the people, before they realize how being fucked they are by this government that exists by and for the rich.  If the Democrats had codified Roe, then they would have lost it as a wedge issue.  Then they would have had to do actual governance.  Can’t have that.  That wouldn’t be what their corpo masters want.  The real owners of this country.  So they did nothing.  They are elated by the destruction of Roe v Wade.  It’s a birthday present to them.  One they are already capitalizing on.

And similarly, they won’t do a goddamn thing to codify Obergefell v Hodges, either.  Because just like Roe, if they do that, then they lose it as a wedge issue.  It’s all so blatant, so pathetically political theater.  Thankfully, my fellow millennials and Gen Z see RIGHT THROUGH their bullshit.  The support among the young for the Democrats has in a crater.  This is something that should frighten them.  It’s something that should terrify them.  Because while we are a notoriously unreliable voting block, they know that they can’t count on the old forever.  The old get older, and then die.  What then?  What do they do when there is no major support among a majority of demographics?

I can already hear the “so what, you prefer we get fascism?”  It’s gonna happen anyway.  At this point, there’s nothing that can be done to stop it, short of armed revolution to bring the corpo hegemony to its knees.  That won’t happen.  Americans are too pussy for that sort of thing.  So it will be fascism, eventually.  America is a dying empire.  Fascist regimes always happen when empires are reaching the end of their time.  History is a good teacher.  Even the liberals get this.  The whole “harm reduction” movement was a tacit admission that there is no stopping this.  Just slowing it down.

For my part, fuck the Democrats.  I’m done with them.  I’m voting third party or not at all.  I will only vote for somebody who actually has the things I want and will actually fight for them.  I am an Independent.  As the rest of you should be.  Don’t give a cent to a Democrat candidate.  Give it to groups promoting abortions.  They can actually do something useful with the money.  As opposed to the Democrats, who will give it to Lockheed Martin and Raytheon.

Until next time, a quote,

“I’m convinced the whole SJW thing in 2014 was a CIA psyop.” – Shoe0nHead

Peace out,

Maverick

Top 10 Comic Relief Characters

I was recently watching an old episode of Terrible Writing Advice about comic relief characters (linked here). In it, he talks about how awful comic relief characters can be. There are countless examples of these characters in things being a iron ball around a story’s ankle.  But there are examples of it being done well.  I thought I would go into the characters in various fiction who are fantastic examples of comic relief done well.  If you have any you want to add, feel free to do so down in the bottom.

10. Jeff “Joker” Moreau
Mass Effect Trilogy
One of the greatest space operas of all time had an AMAZING cast of characters.  However, by and large, most of them are squad-mates who have a secondary role in the story.  But there is one character who is apart from this, and exists as a fantastic source of dry humor – the pilot of the Normandy, Joker.  Voiced brilliantly by Seth Green, he brings this snarky sarcasm to all three games, and his commentary only gets better as the franchise goes on.  But he is also a rich character with a tragic back-story and who grows over the course of the franchise.  If the franchise had a better ending, who knows what could have happened with him.

9. Pintel and Ragetti
Pirates of the Caribbean (franchise)
Some characters are comic relief in pairs.  You can’t have one without the other.  And in that regard, these two guys are too much fun.  The bumbling deckhands who you have to love, even when they are being villainous.  The two of them are just so ridiculous and are so good at deflating tension, but in a good way.  However, they are still devilish pirates.  When they are telling the story of Will’s father, you see that they are villainous too.  The fact that they round out these characters as a part of adventures, but don’t make them overly intrusive is a credit.  It makes their odd commentary on a given situation that much more fun.

8. Neelix
Star Trek Voyager
This is a character that a lot of people are split on.  Mike from Red Letter Media despises him.  Sees him as a clown.  As for me, I think he’s an interesting character.  He doesn’t really come into his own until the third season, but that’s when the series hit its stride.  He is a character that many feel comfortable talking to.  He has a way with children that seems organic.  There are some people who have a way of talking to kids.  The relationship between him and Naomi is kinda cute.  Especially when it has its more dramatic moments.  But the whole crew comes to see him as a good person and a valuable member of the crew.  Sure, he’s goofy, but that’s not a bad thing.  So I am in disagreement with RLM on this one.

7. Iago
Aladdin
The first of several characters from the Disney animated library who will be on this list.  Voiced by the late Gilbert Gottfried (RIP), this character was entirely too much fun.  Not only did he bring that Gottfried humor, but he was such a delightfully evil character.  Much like Jafar, you loved to hate this bird.  He was properly named, being as delightfully evil as his Shakespearean namesake.  I genuinely cannot imagine any other character making this character work, other than Gottfried.  He may not be with us anymore, but he lives on in the amazing work he did.

6. Dopey
Snow White and the Seven Dwarves
Right out of the gate with Disney’s animated works, they had a fantastic comic relief character.  Dopey is the youngest of the seven dwarves, and the implication with this character is that he’s mentally handicapped.  While his brothers may not be especially kind to him, they at least treat him like he’s family, which is actually quite something.  Unless you were high-born, being mentally deficient in the Dark Ages was almost exclusively a death sentence.  And he makes the most of it.  He leads a good life with his brothers and is able to seemingly enjoy something about every moment.  Sometimes it’s good to be simple.

5. Kronk
The Emperor’s New Groove
I would have put Kronk and Izma on this list, but the reality is that she’s the main antagonist.  But this character is just the best.  Patrick Warburton is like the most criminally under-appreciated voice actor of this generation, maybe after Mona Marshall.  The comedic heat that he brings with this role is phenomenal.  Playing perfectly off Izma, voiced by the late Eartha Kitt.  These two’s banter is incredible.  I have to believe that they were in a room together.  There is just so much chemistry between them, it makes me hope that they were in the same recording studio together, able to make their banter more natural.  Puts a smile on my face every time I watch it.

4. Drax
 Guardians of the Galaxy (franchise)
This guy is just the best.  David Bautista is amazing.  I can’t imagine who would be cast for this, if not for him.  The way he is able to bring this take-everything-literally and be totally deadpan humor is hilarious.  Right from the first time you meet him, he’s such a likeable character.  You just wanna punch him, but he’s also got this likeable personality.  He’s insanely eccentric, yet has these hilarious quiet deadpan humor moments that are gut-busting.  I cannot imagine how he got into character for this role, but good on him.  He’s a great actor, which is almost a shock, since he comes from a wrestling background.

3. Merry and Pippin
Lord of the Rings
These two are just too much fun.  Right out of the gate, we get to know them as a couple of incorrigible trouble-makers who Gandalf makes wash dishes after they fuck with his fireworks.  But over the course of the series, you get to know them as much deeper character, who never lose that comedic side.  I got the extended edition on blu-ray, and boy does the stuff they added for them make each time you see them even better.  I love this trilogy, and they are a part of the reason why.  TWA talks about having comic relief be a foil for characters and to add to the narrative, and boy does that apply with these two.

2. Marco
Animorphs
When you first get to know Marco, he seems like he is completely care-free.  He is the character who always seems to have a bad joke to say.  But you quickly come to realize that there are some real powerful forces working in this character as well.  He lives with his dad, with the two of them believing that his mother died.  But when they realize that she is alive and the current host for Visser One, it has him facing a lot of uncomfortable truths.  He also has a keenly strategic mind, which becomes something that their leader, Jake, is able to rely on.  Still, he doesn’t outwardly seem to take much of anything overly seriously, even if that is a smokescreen for a character who is always keeping his eyes and wits open.

And my favorite comic relief character is…

1. Sokka
Avatar: The Last Airbender
The peak of making a character who at first seems like little more than just a character to make fun of, and developing them into one of the most essential characters in the entire franchise.  Sokka is the only “man” of the Southern Water Tribe, after the men who are of fighting age left to go take on the Fire Nation.  He’s overly serious, and always seeming to be the butt of a joke, but you gradually see that he is a determined warrior.  In a world where characters are able to bend the elements, you see that he has not let that hold him back.  We do see that he feels somewhat useless in the face of their team and the skills they have, but when he decides to learn sword-fighting, it brings out another side of him.  Underneath the silly side of him, there is a keen warrior, and a sharp tactical mind.  It is to the point that even characters who have so much more power than him look to him for leadership in a crisis.  Starting as the butt of a joke, he becomes a powerful and accomplished warrior.

Until next time, a quote,

“Sure you don’t want some?  It’s very thirst-quenching.  It’ll quench ya!  It’s the quenchiest!” – Sokka, Avatar: The Last Airbender

Peace out,

Maverick

Lucien’s Cool Video Game Concept, #6

Doing these posts is a constant reminder to me that so much of the potential this medium has is being wasted.  Gaming could be at the fore-front of creative innovation.  But it isn’t.  Right now, it’s potential is being wasted.  Why?  Because AAA game companies have discovered that gaming makes them obscenely rich, they make games that are addictive and monetized to shit.  Play on the addictive personalities people have and then say that you are not part of the problem when people get addicted to microtransactions.  Hell, Blizzard is straight-up saying that the only people who complain about the P2W mechanics in Diablo Immortal are haters, and that their complaints are not legitimate.

Things like that should be the death knell of games like that.  They should be the point where everyone uninstalls them and then never gives Blizzard the time of day again.  But these companies do what Disney does, and trot out old nostalgic franchises to get people to come back.  And it works.  You have no idea how frustrating this is, to me.  I play games like Flower or ABZU, and I realize that there is an endless well of creativity.  Companies like Activision Blizzard or EA or Ubisoft have such deep pockets that there is literally no reason they couldn’t bankroll a ton of neat little ideas.  But that’s not what we get.  Instead, we get more of the same, year after goddamn year.

Today, I was thinking about my favorite film – Fantasia.  In Kingdom Hearts: Dream Drop Distance, you play a series of missions set in levels that are taken straight from the film.  No dialogue, just combat and music of the film.  They are great stuff.  Not perfect, but pretty great.  So my question is – why has nobody ever tried to make this into a video game, except to expand on the concept and improve upon it. 

The idea with that film is that it combined animation with music, to create an experience to watch.  Gaming has this potential.  And for my money, it would be best suited by going into a third-person perspective of an animal, like Stray.  To allow you to traverse a world of color, sound, and motion.  I can already hear the “LSD Simulator” people, and I guess it would feel like that.  But there is real potential here.  But there would need to be some rules.  For starters, no music with words.  I want this to be a sensory experience.  An experience where a lot of it is open to interpretation.

The second rule is that I want this to be something where the animators are allowed to let their creativity run free, but it has to match up with the music that they are using.  Fantasia was about combining animation with music in a way where the two things matched up.  I think this should be no different.  But I don’t want this to be something that is on-rails.  I want there to be some impotence to explore the setting.  Like the film I am inspired by, it would be cool if each individual level had a different piece of classical music associated with it.  Also, no two level should be exactly like the other ones.  Each one should be unique, in art style and hopefully experimenting with play styles as well.

The third rule is – no combat.  Of any kind.  This is about the experience of perception.  That’s when you get all the “walking simulator” assholes.  Fuck off.  Not everything needs to be high-octane all the time.  Some things can be quieter or louder, but not violent.  They can be about opening your mind to interpretation.  Seeing a kitty wandering a world that looks like an MC Escher painting, or something that is absurd with no rules at all.  But that’s not to say that you couldn’t have sequences with a character running or sliding around or parkouring about.  I understand that this is an interactive medium.  Journey was able to do this flawlessly.  Combine various elements.  The goal of this is to get video game devs to really flex their creative muscles and see what they come up with.

The final rule is that if there is a story that combines all this, it needs to be simple.  Something very fairy-tale in its conception.  Like that story of the cat who is looking to get home and goes into a world of mysteries and has adventures before getting home.  What was that called…?  Anyway, the whole idea of this is that it needs to have a quality that is abstract.  Perhaps the kitty having dreams?  Or maybe the kitty waking up somewhere and trying to find their way home, but having to go through a world that is musical and strange.  Meeting some odd characters along the way who help them on their journey.  Keeping it light and somewhat whimsical will allow for the various worlds to be the way they are without the players questioning it too much.

Gaming has a lot of potential.  It endlessly drives me up the wall when it doesn’t use it.  There are so many great video game ideas that will never see the light of day because of studios who only want to make as much money as possible with the least amount of effort.  We are seeing where that gets us.  AAA companies who nearly go bankrupt after one major AAA failure and then get bought out by a console company.  We shouldn’t be dealing with this.  Gaming should have 8 or 9 smaller games in addition to their big releases.  Stuff that is allowed to let devs be creative and pursue neat ideas.  Instead, everything is done to pad the bottom line.  We can do better than this.  I genuinely don’t understand why we aren’t.

Until next time, a quote,

“Walt Disney described animation as a voyage of discovery into the realms of color, sound, and motion.” – Angela Lansbury, Fantasia 2000

Peace out,

Maverick

Lucien’s Video Game Concept, #5

I’ve been thinking recently, about military shooters. They all suffer from the same problem – they are too bombastic.  They all seem to suffer from Michael Bay Syndrome, of having to have as many explosions and as much action as possible.  To be honest, it’s limiting the genre.  But there was an instance where a game actually got into what I wish more of these game actually did – making war feel real and cold and tense.  Ironically enough, it was the Call of Duty: Modern Warfare reboot. 

For starters, you have a mission in Piccadilly Square, where terrorists are shooting up cars, mowing down innocent people, and where innocent people are everywhere and you have to be careful where you’re shooting.  That was awesome!  It felt so tense, as I am making my way between cars and not knowing where the enemy is and each time I see a person, I am having to measure whether or not to take a shot.  You are so programmed to just shoot whatever moves in these games.  It is so nice to have one where you have to be careful.  I RPed in my head that if I hit a civilian, I got dressed down at the end of a mission. 

But the real highlight was later, when you are part of a team that is infiltrating a London townhouse.  That mission was awesome!  It is such a quiet mission.  You make your way toward the house, making a ladder to go up to the second floor.  You have to be silent.  Wait a few second.  Your comrade cuts the power, then you switch on the night-vision and the mission begins.  It’s a home filled with terrorists.  At least, mostly.  There are also women who have children here.  There are also women who are part of the cause.  The mission is slow and tense as you go through the home and have to clear out rooms.  Every corner could have an enemy hiding.  You never feel safe.  Behind a wall, bullets come through!  I drop and fire back.  A lady is telling me she isn’t one of them, while heading toward a gun.  Don’t do it, lady!  She tries to grab it, I open fire.  There’s the sound of casings hitting the floor, and it’s harrowing. 

Those two missions were such a highlight for me, and made me realize that I’m bored of the bombastic modern warfare shooter.  Another game that, ironically enough, got me into the spirit of things was the original Modern Warfare 2, when America is being invaded, and you are fighting on the streets of the US.  Those missions were awesome!  So was when you were fighting it out in Paris in Modern Warfare 3.  I like an intimate setting.  I like a shooting situation where it isn’t about big explosions, but instead about the cruel and cold nature of war, and how you being a soldier is dangerous and death can happen at any point. 

In the aforementioned house mission, I cranked up the difficulty so the HUD would go, and I would die with just one or two hits.  I wanted to know the feeling.  When you don’t know where the enemy is, and are checking every single corner as carefully as you can.  As a role-playing aspect, I would shout “Clear!” every time I got through a room. 

Which brings me to my video game concept.  We need a modern warfare game that expands on this concept.  I can’t be the only one who is tired of all the big set-pieces and endless Bayhem.  There has to be a market out there for people who want more close, tense, and intimate conflict.  It makes me think of the old Rainbow Six games.  We need this to be developed.  For a game that has you as a soldier, and not an American one.  Instead of another God Bless ‘Murica game, how about we examine being in the military of another country?  French sounds fun.  Or British.  Or the SDF with Japan.  Have us really go into a game where it is about this sort of thing.  Clearing rooms, avoiding hitting civvies, being able to die quickly if you aren’t careful.

No PVP multiplayer for this, either.  Coop multiplayer would be fun.  Have you and your team working together, watching each other’s backs.  Have the enemy AI be smart and know how to use corners and cover well.  Not to mention how to shoot through doors and walls.  Modern military hardware can do that, no problem.  Have characters going through a warehouse or corporate building, where the tension is higher because now there are even more corners.  No difficulty selection.  This game would be hard, and death would come quick.  Have the checkpoint system be a little more forgiving, but one would still have to be on top of their game. 

As for narrative, unsure.  The old Rainbow Six games is probably the closest concept to what I am thinking of.  Special forces who are responding to attacks on friendly soil.  Instead of making this a meticulous thing about selecting armor and gear, however, the focus would be on the mood and getting it right.  You would play as one of a couple characters, but everyone would have their normal kit and you work with that.  You pick your favorite play style.  I would also ditch perma-death that the old Six games had.  This isn’t meant to be a simulation, but a re-creation.  To feel what it’s like to be in that situation.  There would be hostage missions, where you have to be quiet and avoid hitting them, along with avoiding having the enemy kill them. 

This would be a decidedly quieter shooter.  No set-pieces.  None.  Things would occasionally go loud, but in the service of something.  Like when the enemy is aware you’re there and they book it.  Now you’re chasing them through a busy area, having to avoid civilian casualties.  I would also make it that you wouldn’t instantly fail if you kill civvies.  You would just be shit, relentlessly.  It would be a reputation you could either improve or make worse.  By the end, people would either respect you for your ability to avoid civilian deaths, or look down on you for killing a lot of innocent people.  You would interact with your squadmates.

I would also have it that you can drop the the floor in a pinch.  Because sometimes that’s what you have to do in order to avoid getting shot.  Bullets coming through the wall, you hit a button and drop.  Have your screen go red because it hurts to just fall to the floor, but you can hit the enemy.

Another thing that would be fun is moral ambiguity.  The ugly thing about terror organizations is that they recruit people who aren’t just of X group or Y.  Having to kill people who don’t seem like the type, then realizing that they were and the reality that you don’t know who to trust in a tense situation, that could be fun to play with, narratively.  Too many shooters make it out to be that everyone who is a bad guy is just one group of people, when the reality is nowhere near that clean.  Having you and your squadmates feeling uncomfortable after killing innocent people or killing someone who you tried to reason with, but refused to stand down would be a neat concept.  Making violence look less like a game and more like a tragic fact of life, when one puts on the uniform.

That is my concept.  There is potential in military shooters, it’s just being wasted with the market being cornered by COD and Battlefield.  Wish another company was willing to take a risk and see what happens.

Until next time, a quote,

“Check your shots.” CAPT. William Price, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare (2019)

Peace out,

Maverick

The Jurassic Park Sequels: One Big Pile of Shit

The first movie I ever saw in theaters was Jurassic Park.  When I found out that it was made based on a book, I read it and it unlocked my love of Michael Crichton, who is still my favorite author.  The film was fantastic.  It had effects that were ahead of their time.  It had a story that was simple and characters who were likeable.  The film had heart and passion, because Steven Spielberg card to make something great.  It was an amazing film.  So it came as no surprise when there was a sequel.  After all, there was a sequel book.  Now, when I read through the first book, the sequel book didn’t make a whole lot of sense to me.  After all, Malcolm died at the end of the first book.  So how is he magically back in the sequel?  

But I saw the film, and it was…not great.  I’ll admit, as a kid, I was able to turn my brain off enough to watch and be entertained, but something was missing from it.  It just felt…dumber than the first one.  Now, rewatching it as an adult, it’s bad.  It’s stupid.  This marked the first in a series of films, each progressively worse than the last.  Not a SINGLE sequel to Jurassic Park has been better than the film that came before.  It takes talent to be that bad.  To make films that terrible.  And yet, as I discovered from posts on Twitter, there are people who will defend them.  So I thought I would go through each of the sequels, to look at what is awful, and see if we can discover what went wrong with this series.

The Lost World: Jurassic Park

There are parts of this film that I want to like.  For real, it has these little moments that are actually pretty okay.  The scene where the T-Rex parents are destroying the trailer is great stuff.  The scene where the hunters are taken apart, one after the other in the tall grass is great.  Hell, even when the bald hunter guy takes down the T-Red with tranquilizers is pretty rad.  But those scenes are not enough to make up for how bad this movie is.

Let’s get into the bad things.  First, the scene with the British girl being eaten by the compys is stupid beyond all reason.  “Are you some sort of bird or something?”  Are you kidding me?  In the age where computers were a thing, and all little kids are exposed to dinosaurs at one point or another, she wouldn’t have known about them?  Not to mention, the events of the first film would have been some of the largest headlines of all time after they took place.  It would have been news unlike anything seen before.  The scandal of the century, bar none.  And this little girl is just somehow unaware of what she is looking at?  That’s stupid. 

And instead of running away when the dinosaur brings buddies, she just stands there and does nothing.  That’s stupid.  Far away the worst part of that, however, is the obscene levels of over-acting from the mother when they find the dinosaurs ripping the girl apart.  It’s so forced, so overdone, so telegraphed, part of me wonders if Sam Raimi directed that part.  He does love screaming women in his movies (Spider-Man 2 sucks for that very reason)

Another thing that’s stupid – they just put dinosaurs in cages?  Are you kidding me?  Creatures that large and that strong?  Just put them in cages and that held them?  I call bullshit.  We then have the scene where a T-Rex somehow snuck into camp and stuck its head into the tent with Julianne Moore and the black girl and NOBODY noticed.  They’re on an island full of dinosaurs, and nobody decided to keep watch?  Are you fucking kidding me?! 

We then get to the REAL stupid in this movie – the scene at the shed with the raptors.  In the first movie, the velociraptors were these smart, learning monsters that were able to figure out things like how to open doors.  In this movie?  They are idiots.  But the scene where the black girl does flips on the bars and kicks a raptor out the window is so dumb that it defies comprehension.

Oh, but don’t neglect to talk about the stuff that happens in San Francisco.  Somehow, the T-Rex got off the boat that was carrying it.  O-kay.  It magically killed the crew without destroying the vessel.  Okay.  It arrives on shore and some ultra-moron decides – hey, the door to where the T-Rex is being kept is slightly ajar.  Let’s open it more!  Oooookay.  It rampages through a neighborhood with nobody awake enough to call 911.  OKAY.  The police don’t open fire on it when it is a threat to innocent people.  Actually, scratch that.  Cops are cowards.  We learned that in Uvalde and Parkland.  So yeah, that fits.

The film is so dumb, and ends on a note just as dumb.  But it is still made by Steven Spielberg, who has at least a little talent with film-making.  And some heart.  It’s nothing compared to what came afterwards.

Jurassic Park 3

I’m going to have to be so selective about what I included in the stupidity of this film.  The list would be so long otherwise.  I’m going to do this as a bulleted list.

• The plot hinges on a kid going to the islands and ending up on them because the people driving their boat were magically eaten without them noticing.  Okay.
• Dr. Grant is somehow duped into going back by a guy who is so clearly not a rich man.
• The dream sequence where a raptor is talking to him.
• They land on the island and Tea Leoni is using a megaphone to shout into the jungle, on an island full of dinosaurs.  Okay.
• New super-dinosaur kills T-Rex, which is the reason everyone loved the original movie.
• Dr. Grant uses the 3D printed Raptor vocal bone to communicate with them.
• The kid was somehow able to acquire T-Rex urine.  That’s stupid.
• Dr. Grant’s assistant stole raptor eggs to sell.  This opens up a whole discussion on why dinosaur pillaging wouldn’t be a bigger industry that is never had in any of the films that follow.  Why?  Reasons.
• They were somehow able to hear the phone go off from inside the stomach of super-dinosaur.
• They are able to outrun super-dinosaur, on foot.  I was annoyed by this with the raptor in the kitchen with Timmy in the first film.  This took it to absurd lengths.
• How did the pterosaurs survive in a contained cage for that long?  That’s stupid.
• They never say how Dr. Grant’s assistant survived the fall or being carried down-river.
• How did Sadler know about the dinosaurs just from hearing Dr. Grant hold up the phone?  Especially with all the rain.
• After they gave the eggs back to the raptors, why didn’t they still eat them?  What, are raptors now smart enough to feel mercy?
• How did Sadler get the military to come to the island?  And how that quickly? 

That film was so stupid that the franchise seemed to be dead, and better for it.  However, in the world of endless nostalgia-bait (which is THANKFULLY starting to die out), Hollywood wasn’t going to let that stay dead forever.  Thus, a reboot was born.  Which brings us to…

Jurassic World

I have no words for how stupid this film is.  The effects look worse than the original.  The plot is incomprehensibly stupid.  The characters are all cut-outs.  I hate this movie.  The people who say that they like it are flying monkeys for the film industry, at this point.  Because there is so much dumb, I’m going to make another bulleted list.

• So, they just built a new park on a part of the island that InGen didn’t use, and cordoned-off that part of the island?  Okay.
• The rolling vehicle things they use are so incredibly impractical.  Not to mention, what if they were to roll through shit?  What then? 
• So, instead of just letting the dinosaurs be amazing all by themselves, they decided that they were going to make ultra-dinosaurs, because people are bored?  That’s…dumb.  That’s so spectacularly dumb that I have no words for it.
• Evil business guy wants to have dinosaurs in the military.  That is the dumbest thing I have ever heard.  You all have NO idea how much push-back I get on this.  “But the military uses dogs!”  Yeah, dogs that eat kibble!  Let’s say that velociraptors could be trained for military purposes.  They eat meat.  Flesh, exclusively.  They would have to constantly be bringing pounds of animal flesh on the daily to stop it from eating other soldiers.  Not to mention, dinosaurs aren’t like dogs.  It is cool, in fiction, to see a dragon be trained to ride, but the reality is that reptile brains don’t work like mammalian ones.  They would be impossible to domesticate to that level.  Ever.  This idea is stupid with a capital S.
• They made a super-dinosaur that not only thinks, but can plan, camouflage itself, and disappear from infrared sensors.  Are you fucking kidding me?  And it gets out because fatty doesn’t want to get eaten.  O-kay….
• Super-dinosaur releases the dinosaurs everywhere and while you don’t see the results, it is implied that the public is being ripped to pieces.  There is a scene where a fuck-ton of people are trapped and dinosaurs are there, with the implication that it is about to be a slaughter.  But it’s modern PG-13, which is PG by another name.  We all know what that would actually have looked like afterwards.  That scene from Cabin in the Woods after the horror monsters get out.
• The scene where the babysitter of the two boys is killed in a completely extra and needlessly cruel way that sounds like a laugh track was supposed to be put over it.
• Redhead woman is able to outrun a T-Rex on foot, in HEELS!  No!  That’s dumb!  That’s so dumb that I have no words for it!  Ugh!
• The raptors betray Chris Pratt, but then later team up with T-Rex to fight super-dinosaur, who still beats their ass, but then gets eaten by sea reptile.  Okay.

The people who can defend that movie are a strange lot to me.  I don’t know how to make myself dumb enough to like it.  I nearly drank myself into a coma with a girly-mate of mine and we were still unable to be stupid enough to watch it without talking about how stupid it was.  But this new franchise was only getting started with the stupid.

Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom

This film should have been what ended this franchise.  It was so terrible that I don’t understand the people who defend it.  It is a film where the script was written by a five year old, edited by no one and accepted on the first draft.  Let’s get started with the stupid.

• So, Chris Pratt is roped into a mission to go get Blue by red-headed woman, but the people they are with are so clearly evil and they never stop to wonder about that?  Sure does bite them in the ass.
• The clearly evil villains betray Chris Pratt and chums the second that one of the guards accidentally shoots Blue.  Rather than play it off as an accident and still keep him working for them.
• The villains knock out Chris Pratt with tranquilizer that only works for 10 minutes.  Okay.
• The villains betray the not evil characters before they have even finished wrangling dinosaurs.  Why?  Seriously, how did this help?  They could have EASILY kept them on their side, gotten their help wrangling the dinosaurs, and then, when they were on the ship and leaving, they could have killed them and dumped them overboard. 
• Buffalo Bill is in this movie, and he has a fixation on stealing dinosaur teeth.  This is important.  Take it down on your Important Pad of Important Shit in this terrible fucking movie.
• Chris Pratt is able to outrun a pyroclastic flow, on foot.  Bullshit!  That is bullshit!  He would be dead.  He would have been so utterly dead.
• The gang gets trapped in front of the ball vehicles, and the dinosaurs very politely destroy everything around it, instead of bashing right through.
• Chris Pratt outruns the pyroclastic flow and then goes over a cliff and is just fine. 
• The tech nerd, rather than opening the main door or them just using the ladder to get out of the room they are trapped in, opens up a long tunnel that just happens to have a meat-eating dinosaur in it.  Okay.
• The gang gets into a vehicle and jumps it off the edge of the dock and just so happens to land in the boat without arousing any suspicion.  OKAY!
• We are introduced to a new character who was apparently John Hammond’s partner that we have never heard about before now.  Okay. 
• We are introduced to a young girl character, who is a clone of his daughter, which is the reason that him and Hammond had a falling out.
• The dinosaurs are brought to a secret lab under Not-Hammond’s mansion for an auction.  O-kay.
• Here we learn that they have made yet-another super-dinosaur, this time a super-raptor, for the purposes of using it in the military.  We’re doing this chestnut again.  Wow…
• Chris Pratt gets into the T-Rex cage and fucks with it and at no point things to himself – I should bring tranquilizer in case this thing wakes up.
• Buffalo Bill decides that he absolutely must have the super-raptor’s tooth for his weird fetish and so goes into the cage to get it, thus enabling it to get free.
• Instead of using this opportunity to get free, super-raptor decides he is going to kill clone-girl instead.  Why?  Reasons.
• Blue is a super-hero now!  Why?  Reasons!
• Chris Pratt saves the day by tricking super-raptor onto the roof of the mansion and having it fall through the plain as day glass window.  You know, because it is a super-smart animal and would totally fall for that blatant trap.
• Clone-girl releases all of the dinosaurs trapped there, who have already killed a ton of people, out of the facility.  Why?  “Because they are clones, like me.”  And no adult there tried to stop her.  Wow…

You’d think, after a film as stupid and dumb as this, it couldn’t get any dumber.  But you’d be wrong!  You bet your ass it can get dumber!  We’re into the crowning jewel on this steaming pile of shit the franchise has become, all propped up by the original film.  Let’s talk about…

Jurassic World: Dominion

This film had a premise that could actually have been a cool movie, if in the hands of a better writer, director, and company that cared.  Instead, it is in the hands of the same moron who made the first film in the reboot trilogy.  Oh boy!  Let’s get into this trash pile.

• Dinosaurs are living in midwest communities that get really cold winters.  They have no feathers or fur, so these dinosaurs would freeze to death with the first winter.
• Chris Pratt wrangles a parasaur on the back of a horse with a rope.  You know, like a cow.  Unbelievable.  At least The Lost World showed that capturing these things are difficult.  Now it’s as easy as just grabbing a horse.  Okay!
• Chris Pratt, red-headed chick, and clone girl are living in the woods, looking after Blue and its offspring.  Why?  Because he really cares about it and loves it and the two have a connection.  Okay.
• The new evil scientists kidnap clone-girl and Baby Blue.  Why?  Reasons.
• Dinosaurs are just among people now, and there is no concerted effort to destroy them.  If anything, the film treats them like pests.  Way to take the majesty of dinosaurs and strip it away.  “Honey, we have a pack of compys in the backyard again!  I thought you called the exterminators about that!”  Not a quote in the film, but that’s how it’s treated.  Never mind the ecological nightmare that would ensue from this.  Thanks, clone-girl.
• The B-plot is Ellie Sadler seeing a flock of mega-locusts destroying crops everywhere and very quickly deduces that they are evil locusts with dino-DNA.  Why would these be made?  Oh, the reasons are as stupid as they are cartoonishly evil.  Because evil corpos want to control the world’s food supply.  This is Captain Planet shit.  Wow…
• Rather than get professionals to help her, she gets Dr. Grant to go with her to evil Corpo island, where Jeff Goldblum is there to tell them all about how evil corpos aren’t that bad.  Of course they’re not.
• Evil corpos decide to use dinosaur DNA on people, to fight genetic conditions.  Yeah, because I’m sure mixing interspecies DNA couldn’t possibly have repercussions.  In a better movie, this would end with people-dino hybrids, which would be insane and stupid, but at least it would be cool.  Which is something this film could have DESPERATELY used.  I didn’t pay to see this film.  I pirated it.  But I was told by a friend that right around this part of when people started walking out, so at least I’m not alone in finding this movie stupid.
• Chris Pratt is in Italy, and ends up in the stupidest bike chase because evil corpo mercs have trained raptors who follow laser designated targets.  OKAY!  This film is so fucking stupid.
• Baby Blue is a Jesus raptor.  I shit you not, it’s divine birthing.  This film is so fucking stupid.
• BD Wong wants to kidnap Baby Blue and clone-girl so he can study them.  For reasons.
• Clone-girl was actually made by the woman she is a clone of, who then took the cloned embryo and put it back in herself to give birth to it.  O-KAY!  This movie is fucking stupid.
• Clone-girl’s mother is apparently a super-genius who was able to use insane and invasive gene therapy to cure her cloned daughter of a genetic illness that is killing her.  Okay.
• Ellie and Alan get genetic info, and then get some actual footage, but instead of sharing that to social media, they just decide to try and escape the facility.  This film is so fucking stupid.
• Ellie knew super-genius clone-mom.  Why?  How?  Don’t know!  But now she has a connection to clone-girl, so she is going to help save her.  Okay!
• Chris Pratt and company are in a plane that gets attacked by a pterosaur.  It is somehow able to rip apart the engine and cause them to plummet from the sky.  The only way off the plane that the pilot had is an ejector seat, that is for red-head’s seat.  So they launch her out, while smashing into the ground themselves.  Neither of them are injured in any way from this.  This movie is so fucking stupid.
• Red-head avoids death by going underwater, even though the huge-clawed dinosaur was clearly watching her move into the pond.  I’ve already accepted how nothing in this movie functions in a way based on reality.
• Chris Pratt and black pilot lady are confronted by a raptor that has feathers.  Well, it’s nice to see this late in the film they actually remembered that science has progressed on what we know about these dinosaurs.  Chris Pratt lives because he has plot armor.  All these characters live because they have plot armor.
• Evil corpo man of the film decides to destroy the evidence of his wrong-doing, and so you get giant super-locust clouds on fire, falling from the sky onto Chris Pratt and company’s vehicle.  Okay! 
• We have yet-another super-dinosaur.  Why?  Reasons.  At this point, I just assume the director doesn’t have a single other idea in their creative toolbox.  So yeah, fuck it.
• The dinosaurs have mysterious brain commands that they follow now, which is used to save them from the burning forest.  Okay!  This film is SO FUCKING STUPID!

And that’s all I have patience for.  These films are all terrible.  The downward trajectory of how bad they are is almost impressive.  It’s worse than Star Wars.  Actually, no.  No it’s not.  What Disney is doing to that franchise is just mean-spirited.  I think Kathleen Kennedy hates it and wants to burn it to the ground, just to make all the people who shit on it mad because it gives he a sense of pride.  These films are all terrible, and the people who can defend them, especially as we get down the list…I literally can’t make myself as stupid as you, regardless of how much booze or weed I consume.  Congrats.

Until next time, a quote,

“That is one big pile of shit.” – Dr. Ian Malcolm, Jurassic Park

Peace out,

Maverick

Lucien’s First Take: A Plague Tale: Requiem – Extended Gameplay Trailer

Something I love is when game companies do AA budget games.  I miss those.  It seems everything is A or AAA, nothing in-between.  I remember when gaming companies would spread their budget around with AA games, to see what is something that sticks, along with give their devs some creative breathing room to see what they can come up with.  Which is how I ended up finding out about A Plague Tale: Innocence a few years back.  This neat little AA game that slipped almost completely under the radar.  But I was transfixed when it found me, and if you see my review of it, I gave it high marks.  The gameplay was a little frustrating at points, given that Amicia could only take one hit and they would have parts of the game where you defend a point.  Not to mention the running animation that made them look like wind-up toys.  But those blemishes aside, it told a fantastic tale of family, friendship, and loyalty.

I have high hopes for the next game.  For starters, I am DESPERATELY hoping that Amicia and Lucas end up together.  Their budding relationship was fantastic, and my spidey-sense is telling me that this is where the game was going.  I’m all for it.  They are a great couple.  The two of them’s conversations are fantastic, and they would be cute together.  My girlfriend was hoping that it would be Amicia and Melie would have gotten together.  She is a cute gal.  To be fair, they were also cute together.  But I am hoping for Lucas.  I think they are perfect for each other. 

In any event, we now have an extended gameplay trailer released that goes into detail on the gameplay.  Let’s take a look and we’ll see what is next to get hyped about.

We begin seeing our duo swinging from a tree.  I notice that Amicia has a bandage on her head.  Curious what led to this.  Already starting off on the right foot.  A plot mystery that I assume will be solved as we play the game.  We then see our duo talking to a character who has very monk vibes, and we get a clue that they are headed to a place on the Mediterranean Sea.  Nice!  Tropical setting.  I can definitely dig that.  Lots more vibrant colors than the last game.  We also get to meet our latest armored baddie who is on the two’s trail.  He looks the part of someone not to like.  The monk decides to help our intrepid companions, and it is to the action now.

As expected, the two get made pretty quickly and the chase is on.  After tumbling down a cliff, we realize that the bandage on Amicia’s head is covering an injury.  One that is bleeding rather profusely now.  No surprise.  The head is a bad place to get cut.  It bleeds like crazy.  Injured and on the run, you can feel the tension.  I dig it.  From there, we get to see the stealth gameplay.  It’s nice to see that that is still the central focus.  In the last game, it was at its best when Amicia was putting all her tools to work.  This game is carrying on that noble tradition.

One thing that’s interesting is that Hugo is more in touch with feeling the rats than he was before.  He is given the standard magical radar that shows where enemies are that these games always seem to have.  Admittedly less awesome.  It was cool in the last game that you had to be observant and a little lucky to get through an area undetected, for a perfect stealth run.  In this trailer, they aren’t specifically shooting for that.  Still, this is a neat plot detail that I’m sure will come into play as the game goes on.

Something that does make me laugh is how the enemies in this game when Amicia gets the drop on them are very loud when they die.  Or Amicia is shouting when she kills them.  And the reason the other enemies don’t notice that is…?  As the two escape the quarry, Hugo says something interesting.  He asks how many men Amicia killed.  The implication is that the number was big.  She doesn’t deny that, either.  Would explain the gigantic hard-on these guys have got for her being dead.

The visuals that we see are good, but the colors are still a little muted, but the palate has grown.  REALLY hoping we get to see some pretty Mediterranean vistas in this game that show up the colors.  The last game had great characterization and narrative.  I am assuming this game will as well.  I’m not looking for super fidelity.  Part of the problem with gaming now is that everyone wants the uncanny valley.  But a larger color palate would be nice.

Finally, we get to a part that really got my attention – the rats.  The two get inside a structure, but Amicia is falling apart.  She can’t be the one looking after Hugo.  Nice to see her entrusting the kiddo with her defense.  But we see that Hugo can now control the rats and use them directly.  That is awesome!  Creepy, but awesome.  The connection between him and the rats is interesting.  It would be cool if this game got into more detail about it.  It looks like there are facial markings on the kiddo, so maybe there is something more to it.

But after he pushes himself too hard, the rats instantly turn and start coming like a wave at Amicia.  That is creepy as fuck, and very cool.  And from there we get a release date – October 18th.  Alright!  I am all over this.  I was already going to be all over this, but now I am hooked.  Let’s see where it goes next.  Maybe by then a PS5 won’t be so hard to come by.  Or the PS5 Pro will be a thing.  If I am going to be forced to drop major coinage, might as well get the best product

Initial Verdict
Ready for the next chapter in the story

Peace out,

Maverick

What Game Companies Are Even Good Anymore?

I’m coming back to something that I’ve already talked about, but everything I see in the news just depresses me.  I’m feeling so lost in the modern world.  Feeling so left behind.  Like, did part of me just miss the way things were going and now I am just not the demographic for anything anymore?  Did the world just change and I wasn’t around to see it?  This isn’t a rhetorical question.  As you go through this, and hear my sad feels about the video game landscape, I would love if you all could tell me what the issue is.  What is it about gaming of today that I just missed out.  Or am I actually in the right frame of mind, and the world is just so fucked up that there’s nothing to be done about it?  I don’t know, and part of me doesn’t care.

We’re headed into another recession.  Anyone with perspective could see this coming.  After the banks destroyed the economy in 2008, nothing was done to stop their power.  The housing bubble still exists.  It’s even worse in China than it is here.  Student loan debt is in the trillions of dollars (because colleges are an overpriced scam), with the Federal government being on the hook for it.  What this means, in practice, is that life is about to get exponentially harder than it already was.  So money is going to be tighter than it has ever been before.

This should sound like a scary prospect.  After all, video games are expensive.  So doesn’t the idea that they are about to get even more expensive and I will have less money to play them not sit well with me?  No, not really.  Why?  Because there’s so little to actually be stoked for anymore.  There are two games confirmed to be coming out this year that I am stoked to play, Stray and Hogwarts Legacy.  There are some games rumored to be, but I am not holding my breath.  What’s on the docket for 2023?  Black Myth: Wukong looks pretty cool.  A Plague Tale: Requiem is hopefully cool.  There’s nothing else that immediately comes to mind.  Paralives is supposedly coming to Early Access sometime later this year, but I’m not holding my breath on that.  All told, that isn’t that much money to spend.  But the fact that there’s so little to get excited about is depressing.

Read an article where it seems that Tetsuya Nomura is somewhat annoyed that people have this idea that Kingdom Hearts is an amalgamation of Final Fantasy and Disney.  In his words, it’s not, and has never been.  So he’s planning to excise the former franchise like a tumor.  I’m done.  I said in an earlier post that I would play the game if it was for $5, and the reviews confirmed that it was everything I would want it to be.  But I know that won’t be the case.  It’s over.  This is all so fucking disheartening.  It makes me exhausted.  I’m tired a lot.

What game companies are even worth a damn, anymore?  EA is a lost cause.  That company stays afloat purely on sports game microtransactions and mobile games.  Take that away and they make NOTHING.  Bioware?  Every single person who was great there is gone.  They have gone to a new company made by Casey Hudson, the creator of the Mass Effect trilogy.  You know, the good ones. They are making a new game.  One that is supposed to be a choice-based RPG space opera.  Man, if they actually go the distance to take what they learned from the Mass Effect games and actually make something that doesn’t have the EA time constraints, where their creativity can be set free, it would be a game that everyone would be talking about. Especially if it has the kind of character writing and interaction like the ME trilogy.

Oh, but what about Starfield, you ask?  You mean No Man’s Skyrim?  That’s what it looks like.  Take The Outer Worlds, then remove all the cool art style and personality, add in the flaws of the original release of No Man’s Sky, and that’s what you get.  I don’t care.  Don’t have an Xbox Series X anyway, nor a PC rig of my own.  Mean to remedy that, when I get a home with my own office space.  Then I can finally get the Halo games that I really like.  Already wrote about how that franchise needs to die.  Bethesda is nothing to me anymore. 

Same with Activision Blizzard.  The latter used to be the kings of PC gaming.  Now, they are the king of ripping players off, and then saying that if you don’t like their practices, you’re just a hater.  I guess Microsoft is cool with this attitude.  Well, they lost me as a customer.  The whole saga with Diablo Immortal has been such a lesson to me about why there is nothing they make that is worth my time.

What about Ubisoft?  You’re funny.  CD Projekt Red?  Well, Cyberpunk 2077 was a great concept, which had some shoddy delivery.  One of their latest updates made it so my game won’t play anymore, so I have left it behind.  Figure when I get a PS5, I will re-install it and then see what happens.  They are making a new Witcher game, I don’t care.  Like, they created a new school, the School of the Lynx.  I’m sorry, what?  What happened to the School of the Cat?  All of the Witcher schools were named after a specific species of animal.  School of the Wolf, Bear, Gryphen, Viper, and Cat.  The Lynx is a kind of cat.  So…what?  This whole idea feels bad fan-fiction to me, and given how CDPR has fucked up recently, I’m not holding my breath.

Capcom?  I guess they are doing a remake of Resident Evil 4.  It looks nice, I guess.  But that’s it.  The original game is still perfectly fine.  Why didn’t they remake Code Veronica?  That game was cool, but is dated because of the visuals, voice acting, and controls.  It would be better if it was remade.  Why do this one?  Seems like a waste of money, to me.  I hear Konami is making new Silent Hill games.  Whatever.  That company makes pachinko machines now.  They’re dead to me.  Naughty Dog?  Aside from needless sequels to The Last of Us and Uncharted, what else do they do?

Everywhere I look, there’s just big signs telling me that there’s nothing to get excited about.  It’s working.  I don’t get excited.  Everywhere I look, multiplayer games.  Sequels.  Remakes to games that don’t need them.  What is there to be excited about?  The next big multiplayer shooter that Activision or Dice put out?  Not in my lifetime.  Activision was able to actually intrigue me with a concept in their reboot of Modern Warfare, but they are back to making Bayhem games, so I’m out.  I’m tired.  Really, really tired.

It’s not like there aren’t cool possibilities for games.  There are a ton.  An FPS in the vein of Metroid Prime, combining FPS with metroidvania elements.  That is a concept that I haven’t seen done, outside of that franchise.  A stealth game in the vein of OG Splinter Cell, where one has a meter showing how much noise you’re making and how much light levels you have.  Where being made means you die.  A detective story where you don’t do a lot of shooting, and instead focus exclusively on the investigation and interrogation side of things.  Ditch the gunplay and fist-fights.  Or, if you must have them, make them brief and intense affairs.  Make it so that your character can die in one or two hits, so you have to be carefully watching your corners.  Historical fiction games that let us explore periods in history that are not well worn cliches by now.  The possibilities for this medium are endless.  Video game versions of Fantasia, allowing you to explore worlds in step with great pieces of classical music.  There was a JRPG that tried to play with that, even if it wasn’t sappy.  Why is none of this being explored?  Why is gaming so dull and lifeless now?

I was replaying the last mission in Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown, and I was thinking to myself – we should have an elevator to space by now.  Humanity has so much potential that we are falling short on.  Right now we should have an elevator to space and be working on building a colony on the moon.  Be looking at wrangling asteroids to mine the vast amount of natural resources they have that our planet doesn’t.  Similarly, gaming has so much potential for telling amazing stories.  We could right now be making things that tantalize the mind and excite the soul.  But all companies want is things that make them obscene amounts of money.  I’m not even against them making money.  But they can’t just make regular money.  No, they have to make money to such excess that it makes them fatter than ever before.  What do they do with those profits?  Nothing.  They just keeping pumping out the same crap as everyone else. 

So, what do you all think?  I accept all comments.  If you want to just come on and tell me to shut up and accept whatever gruel they give me, you are free to do so.  But am I wrong?  Is the world of gaming something else and can never be what I want?  If that is the case, then, well…I may just move on.

Until next time, a quote,

“I’m tired, boss.” – John Coffey, The Green Mile

Peace out,

Maverick

Star Trek: The Next Generation and Elaborating on Overly Overt “Wokeness”

I know, the term “woke” is so overused that it basically has no meaning. Just like SJW. But stick with me here. I’m going to be elaborating on something and using and episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation as my basis for doing so.  Because I think there is a valid, genuine conversation that needs to happen about modern film and streaming and how they are using “woke” ideas, not to actually dive into something, but as a sledgehammer to bludgeon their audience with.  This approach is detrimental to the very causes they are trying to champion.  Because while they are doing with the best intentions, they are so overt and so lacking in any nuance that they don’t make it feel like they are trying to get their audience to think, but rather telling them how to feel. 

Here’s the thing – yes, Star Trek has always had “woke” concepts in their show.  I’m the first to admit that.  However, in the best days of the the franchise, it looked at these issues with nuance.  It asked hard questions, often ones that didn’t have easy answers.  Two episodes of two different shows really bring this thought concept to mind.  The first is “Half-Life” in TNG.  Thing to know about me – I HATE Councilor Troi.  She is, far and away, my least favorite character in the series after Wesley (Shut up, Wesley!).  But this episode brought in a character I despise even more – her MOTHER.  Troi’s mother is the WORST!  She’s the biggest skank ever.  She’s loud.  She’s annoying.  Nothing she has to say is even remotely interesting.  I despise her from the core of my being.  However, this episode is one that got me to think.  See, she ends up having a fling with a scientist envoy of a species whose star is dying and who is looking to find a way to stop it.  They test his theory, but it is a failure.

After the test fails, he returns to the planet, and it is there that we learn about his culture.  See, at the age of 60, people on his world voluntarily end their lives.  This traces its way back to a time when there was a serious issue with population, and the tradition kept going.  Now it is a part of their society.  One which they accept and even embrace, as the goodbye ceremonies are treated very kindly by family and close friends.  Troi’s mom, needless to say, is disgusted by this whole thing and shits all over this guy’s culture.  It starts out with her seemingly appalled for ethical reasons, but you realize that the biggest issue is that she is more concerned about the fact that she is getting old, and the idea of voluntarily ending one’s own life, when one has the opportunity to live life to the fullest they can is so ugly and demeaning to her.

Granted, the heel-turn of the scientist is jarring.  Especially when he made a very passionate defense of the practice to Troi’s mom.  Still, the episode took a very complicated issue, culture traditions and when one sees them as barbaric, and really makes you think about where you would stand.  It’s a good episode.

The second example is the episode “Death Wish, from Voyager.  It it, one of the Q Continuum is tired of his existence, and is asking for Janeway to be his advocate for the right to end his life.  The Q we all know is in opposition.  It becomes a trial for his right to die.  As someone who is an advocate for physician-assisted suicide for people whose quality of life has gotten too awful, with little to no hope of improvement, this was something that got me to think.  And the episode takes it seriously.  You have both sides making a very passionate argument.  Especially since it is a Q who is wanting to die.  When he shows them the emptiness of their existence and how he is exhausted from continuing in this endless nothing, you feel for him.  It’s basically someone pleading to die because their ennui is too unbearable to deal with anymore.  That’s a fantastic concept!

Both of these episodes deal with heavy issues, and in both cases, they brought up multiple sides of the issue and then let you come to your own conclusion about the whole affair.  They both ended on a bittersweet note, but that is good when you are discussing things that are complicated and don’t have any clear answers.  Both of them are good episodes.

Which brings me back to the concept of “wokeness” in Star Trek being bad.  When people say this, sure, there are the conservatives who just view anything that addresses issues they are uncomfortable with as bad.  However, I would argue that there is a larger contingent of people who are more making a point about how modern Trek talks about issues that are complicated with so little nuance that they might as well have a megaphone and shout at you how you are supposed to feel about the issue.  Which isn’t what Star Trek is about.  This series used to be about people being in a room and talking about things.  Then they would talk to other people about the thing they were talking to that person about.  It was talky-techie sci-fi.  That was the appeal. 

When people talk about how bad Star Trek: Picard is, what they are talking about is how it has a complete lack of subtlety.  There are lots of things in that show that are concepts I agree with.  It’s just horribly written.  Woke ideas that are explained poorly are the problem.  You can talk about just about any “woke” concept, and if it’s done with a deft hand, where multiple points of view are examined critically and there are contrasting opinions and there is some neat debate, then nobody would be complaining.  That’s what old-Trek has that nu-Trek does not.  The nuance to actually examine things in a serious way.  It would be nice if that could come back.

Until next time, a quote,

“There’s a story I heard as a child, a parable, and I never forgot it: A scorpion was walking along the bank of a river, wondering how to get to the other side. Suddenly he saw a fox. He asked the fox to take him on his back across the river. The fox said, ‘No. If I do that, you’ll sting me, and I’ll drown.’ The scorpion assured him, ‘If I did that, we’d both drown.’ So the fox thought about it, finally agreed. So the scorpion climbed up on his back, and the fox began to swim. But halfway across the river, the scorpion stung him. As the poison filled his veins, the fox turned to the scorpion and said, ‘Why did you do that? Now you’ll drown too.’ ‘I couldn’t help it,’ said the scorpion. ‘It’s my nature.’ -CMDR Chakotay, Star Trek: Voyager

Peace out,

Maverick

Top 10 Video Game Franchises That Need to DIE

I made a list back in 2013 called Top 10 Video Game Fallen Angels.  That was a list a lot like this, of franchises that had started out really great, but had lost their way and now just needed to go away.  However, this list is of the game franchises that I am just 100% over and I think need to go the way of the dodo.  This list is going to ruffle some feathers.  I know going into this that I am going to have some people vehemently disagreeing.  And that’s fine.  I don’t just let people who say nice things comment on my posts.  I approve all comments from newcomers, and old commentators don’t have to get reapproved.  You can express your displeasure for my list as much as you like.  But let me explain why I think that these games need to go, and you can voice your displeasure to me when you think I am dead wrong or missing the point.  All this being said, let’s get to the list.

10. Call of Duty
Yeah, yeah, everybody and their brother have said that this franchise needs to die.  I was going to put both this one and Battlefield on this list, because I hold them in the same contempt, but for me, CoD really hits a low note for me because it has had these moments of great ideas, which just got destroyed when they tried to turn this franchise’s single-player into Michael Bay movies.  I remember playing the Modern Warfare reboot, and it was one of the only games where I deliberately cranked up the difficulty so I could ditch the HUD and really feel what it was like as a soldier.  The toned down the bombastic for that game, and it was great!  The mission in the house, checking corners as we take out terrorists was so tense and great.  I was on the edge of my seat.  That is the kind of military shooter I want.  One where things feel more reserved and realistic.  But I watched the trailer for Modern Warfare 2, and I thought to myself – oh look, it’s a Michael Bay movie again.  Like, does Activision Blizzard just not think their target audience can handle something more mature and tense if it doesn’t have enough explosions?  It’s so frustrating.  But yeah, this franchise has had some moments where it was onto something, but those moments are lost when the franchise itself is the way it is, and it needs to die.

9. ALL Sports Games
I can’t pick a franchise in this genre that I dislike more.  They are all universally terrible.  They are all universally there to make virtually no changes, strip away features and then say they are something new in later installments.  These games exist for lootbox and card packs.  They are now all virtual gambling.  EA and 2K games will deny it up and down, but they are lying corpo scum.  These games all suck, and they all need to go.  Don’t really have anything else to say about that.

8. The Last of Us
Immediately know I’m going to touch a nerve with this one.  I held in my review of the first game that I was really hoping they never did a sequel.  I said that to do so would diminish where this game ended and the themes at play with that ending.  And I was right.  The Last of Us: Part II was a game with a shit narrative.  They absolutely ruined Joel’s character.  They psychologically destroyed Ellie’s character, but had the absolutely abysmal character of Abby have no lasting damage from all the things she did.  They took the ending of the first game, where Ellie could tell that Joel was lying, but chose to accept his lie and move forward, and ruined it by having her be totally oblivious to the whole thing, all to create some awful drama in the scene where they kill Joel.  I hated the story to that game, and it was exactly what I thought it would be.  But Neil Druckmann has a wild hair up his ass about continuing the story so he can get more into his preaching about how the things us gamers like are bad because they engender more violence and hate and things of that nature.  Thanks, Neil.  You must think You’re the Martin Scorsese of video games.  This franchise should have ended with the first game, and it needs to end where it is now.  Not that I mean to play any other sequels.  Especially if they involve Abby, because fuck her.  Oh, and speaking of games from Naughty Dog…

7. Uncharted
I remember when I got to the end of Uncharted 3, I thought to myself – okay.  This is a nice little bookend to the franchise.  When I heard that they were making a fourth game, I was 110% skeptical.  However, against all odds, the game managed to impress me.  It introduced a new character, had this great, well-written and well acted narrative, and ended on an even more perfect note to close out the franchise with.  This game was a great bookend.  But I’ve heard that there are more games coming in this franchise.  Why?  What possible reason could you have for continuing it?  After A Thief’s End, Nate was able to hang up his guns.  Again.  So what will it be this time?  He found his equilibrium between his love for going through historical sites and his need for adventure.  Why are you continuing the franchise?  It needs to be allowed to end on a high note.

6. Diablo
As far as I’m concerned, every single franchise by Blizzard belongs on this list, but outside of this and Overwatch, do they actually make anything else?  This company has gone down the tubes so hard.  As AAA companies go, it doesn’t get much worse than Blizzard.  They went from a company known for being the leader in PC gaming to a company who will bilk their loyal fanbase for all they are worth.  It wouldn’t be so bad if they weren’t so damn smug about it.  Like with Diablo: Immortal, a game with multiple pay-to-win mechanics, all of which cost a TON of real-world money.  It is a game where, if you want the best stuff, you have to fork out real-world cash.  The game itself will not let you get the best gear unless you do grinding to such a level that your phone/PC will collapse.  And there are already signs that they mean to monetize Diablo 4 too.  No more.  This company is scummy.  Oh, but don’t say that.  If you talk about their disgusting business practices, you’re just a hater.  That’s their argument.  Fuck this company.  They need to end.

5. Kingdom Hearts
We’re getting more into the part of the list that actually hurts me.  But man, this franchise is such balls now.  Like, I am in shock about how bad it is.  I don’t get how the bulk of people aren’t with me on this.  Kingdom Hearts II is still one of my favorite games.  I love it.  But the thing that made this franchise special, the amalgamation of Disney and Final Fantasy is gone.  That’s by their own admission!  They said for Kingdom Hearts 4 that they don’t need the Final Fantasy aspect anymore, so they won’t commit to it being in the game.  Are you fucking kidding me?!  So then it’s just wacky characters going through Disney worlds?  I’m out.  I don’t care about that.  At all.  This franchise had potential.  It could have been something.  Instead, it’s garbage.  Which sucks, because there is still potential.  If they brought back the distinctive art style, the Disney worlds with personality, the Final Fantasy characters in various Disney worlds.  There could be something amazing.  Instead, it’s all garbage now.  My childhood died when I read about how Square Enix wants to ditch the FF aspect, and it made this company dead to me.  Speaking of Final Fantasy…

4. Final Fantasy
Oh yeah, already knowing people are gonna be mad.  “But Lucien, did you not see their big thing with all the Final Fantasy VII games?!  And what about Final Fantasy XVI?”  Don’t care about that last one.  It looked bland and ugly.  As for the former, so what?  They are milking a game that came out decades ago because they don’t have anything interesting that they make anymore.  Now it’s remaking a game that was great.  Don’t get me wrong, Final Fantasy VII: Remake had its good points, but it was overly long and stretched out to absurd lengths with sections deliberately made to pad out the runtime, and a third act that needed to end 2 hours earlier.  I just don’t have any confidence in Square Enix.  As far as I’m concerned, this company has lost its way and I don’t have any confidence in anything they put out anymore.

3. Halo
Another one that just hurts me.  Growing up, I loved the Halo franchise.  I loved the first two, and I was really in love with Halo 3: ODST.  That game was awesome!  I even have a soft spot for Reach, even though I know it is a sore spot with a lot of gamers.  But hey, at least an attempt has been made to link the events of that game with Fall of Reach.  I remember having a soft spot for the campaign of Halo 4.  Making the Master Chief more of his own character was okay.  The relationship between him and Cortana was touching and how it all ended was pretty okay.  But then came Halo 5.  That game was the worst.  I remember the first trailer released, of chief in a dusty cloak, wandering the desert, with a cracked helmet.  What happened to that game?  That looked awesome!  Instead, what we got was a game with some of the worst writing I’ve ever seen.  Halo: Infinite was perfectly serviceable, but it wasn’t great.  It wasn’t even that good.  Plus, it had to work within the continuity of Halo 5, instead of just retconning the whole thing and the terrible plot that Brian Reed put out.  This franchise lost its way under 343 as they work to chase the broader audience, and it lost all its identity in the process.  It needs to be allowed to die.

2. Assassin’s Creed
This franchise used to be something special.  It really was.  Taking parkour elements, using fantastic historical settings, and stealth action, it was a fantastic series.  The first and second game were pretty good.  Even the cash-grab sequels to II were alright.  III was not a very good game, but it introduced us to ship combat.  Which in turn got us to my favorite entry into the franchise – Black Flag.  That game had it all.  A fun plot that you could enjoy.  Fun characters who were all delightfully ruthless pirates.  Doing assassinations in exotic tropical locales.  But the thing that everyone loved most – the ship combat.  All the fun in this game came when you got to steer your own ship and make war on other ships.  It was great.  However, after that game, the franchise started to lose its way.  There were a bunch of entries, each worse than the last.  It got sucked into the Ubisoft formula machine, and the identity of this franchise was lost along the way.  From where I’m sitting, it needs to end now.

And the game franchise that needs to die most is…

1. Mass Effect
I’ve seen similar lists to mine, and all of them try to make it out like the ending to Mass Effect 3 wasn’t as bad as people make it out to be.  Well, they’re wrong.  It’s worse than people say.  It was a first draft, done in a hurry because EA was up their ass to get the game out before the launch of the next console generation.  The trilogy ended on a resounding thud, and if it wasn’t for the Citadel DLC, it would have been the worst ending of any franchise.  That DLC saved a LOT of face and gave a closing that felt at least somewhat fitting.  Then came Andromeda.  That game was so bad.  Everything was bad.  The writing was bad.  The characters were bland and boring.  The story was ridiculously contrived and stupid.  Nothing about the game was good.  Lines like “My face is tired” were written and acted and nobody said a world to stop it from happening.  Bioware, desperate to try and save face, are doing a numbered sequel, but here’s the thing – the OG team that made the first 2.80 games good are gone.  All of them are gone.  The bulk are now at an indie studio that I am curious to see what they are cooking.  The creative energy of Bioware, the people who made them what they are, are all gone, so that sequel is going to suck.  This franchise needs to be led out to pasture.  It’s long since time.

What game franchises do you think need to be allowed to rest in peace?  Let me know in the comments.

Until next time, a quote,

“At least we threw one hell of a party.” – CMDR. Shepard, Mass Effect 3: Citadel DLC

Peace out,

Maverick