Monthly Archives: August 2013

by | August 15, 2013 · 10:59 am

Guest Blog | The Last of Us

Mr Kurt Klein is the Exhibit Manager for the Virginia Air and Space Museum. He is also a life long gamer. Over a couple beers Kurt shared a unique gaming experience and I’ve asked him to share it here.

There are no two ways about it. I’m a gamer. Not a casual gamer. Not a guy who likes to play games to pass some time. I really enjoy playing games and have since I was in my single digits—back when Atari ruled the console wars with the 2600 and a

My first gaming console

Commodore 64 was cutting edge PC gaming goodness. I once traded away five games to borrow some guy’s Super Nintendo just so I could play Final Fantasy 2 (4) for a week. I have beaten well over 500 games. I have found myself checking the clock at eight pm realizing that I checked the clock at eight am when I started. Lately, however, I’ve found myself bored with playing video games. Very few hold my attention these days, but I still feel the call of the wild and so I turned to a place I hadn’t considered: YouTube.

Just like most people watch a TV series, I now watch people play games, anxiously awaiting the next upload. The truth is, I never used to be interested in watching other people play games. (There is a dark moment surrounding Karnov that I would rather erase from memory, but that’s another story for another day.) Lately, however, it seems I have learned to enjoy watching other people play.

It started slowly. I watched videos of games that I was playing at the time, looking for shortcuts, treasure locations, or NPCs glitching in strange ways. I watched cool kill shots and close calls—the usual fare for a guy who plays games. As I clicked around, I found that I was drawn to one player in particular. He’s not a particularly serious gamer. He doesn’t care if he gets the best loot or beats a level or boss as efficiently as possible. He is all the things I am not, except that he loves making a show out of playing a game. In short, he led me to a revelation.

Mr. James Heaney currently works with GameFront.com, a California-based outfit with a small contingent of two dedicated uploader staff. In a world of serious gamers trying to learn combos, find shortcuts, or just beat games, Heaney stands out as a guy who can not only accomplish these things but give them a showbiz flair. He’s also a comic and an aspiring actor. So while his carefree nature keeps his playing from getting too bogged down with technical explanation, his desire to make an entertaining video keeps him pushing forward.

Dark Souls is my top ever favorite, hardest of hard core games. It’s made not for the faint of heart, but only for the most dedicated of gamers. Shortly after I beat the game, Heaney was challenged to make it through. I wondered, “How in the world is this try-hard going to get through one of the most unforgiving games I’ve ever played?” Not only did he end up doing it, but he used just the right amount of, happy-go-lucky panache combined with his real passion: entertaining people. Mind you, it took him 190 (!) videos to get through.

A little while later, when I saw that GameFront was uploading a play-through of a game called The Last of Us, I was intrigued. I didn’t have a clue what the story was, but I had seen the cover art. Instantly I thought, “Buddy flick, I get it.” So I clicked the first episode and was riveted for the entirety of the upload.

This is what is known in gamer circles as a “buddy flick” (i.e. no sex)

The story was well written. The cut scenes made the characters loveable and appealing and had me cheering them on as the story unfolded. The plot even took Joel and Ellie, the main characters, through Pittsburgh. I have family on Troy Hill, so this tugged at my love for my adopted home town.

As the storyline progressed through Wyoming and into Salt Lake City, Heaney commented on things during quiet moments, but fell silent when anything was happening on the screen. His avatar didn’t linger too long in any one area, yet he managed to explore them pretty thoroughly, which satisfied my ingrained gamer need to eviscerate entirely a game’s mechanic and design, but kept the story moving so as not to lose the viewer. By the end, I had experienced was a great story with well-written characters told through the medium of a video game.

I mentioned I am a gamer, right? Yeah… so I dabbed my eyes free of tears, and promptly watched a couple of reviews of The Last Of Us. To my surprise, there was a lot of groaning about how certain game mechanics and AI took the players out of the story and ended up confusing them or disappointing them because they, being gamers, had to play through all the faults in the game as well as point out the detriments of telling a story through a gaming medium.

I am well aware that the story in a game is very difficult to pace and that balancing it is a HUGE part of making a good experience for a player and a fan. So after seeing that other people did not have the same feelings as I did about The Last Of Us, I started wondering what happened that caused these two opposing points of view. What I realized was that all the disappointed players actually had to PLAY the game, whereas I was able to just watch. Additionally, I must have lucked into watching an entertaining player who affected my perspective without my realizing. Because of Heaney’s play style and personality, the flaws were glossed over. I was paying attention to his playing and commentary rather than having to play it myself and getting wrapped up in mechanics and seeing the glaring flaws. In more than a few spots the AI was noticeably poor. One bit in particular was when the team has to run through a yard and keep quiet, but is being told to be quiet and stay low by a guy who is crunching, rattling and, in some cases, running right past enemies while they ignore him. Flaws are there, to be sure, and I feel very lucky to have been cleverly guided through most of them in a way that made them seem smaller than they are.

What am I to make of my discovery? I imagine a game industry that will seek particular gamers for their style, personality and wit based on what they believe will show their game in the best light. In my mind, no longer is it necessary to rack up the most points, get the most frags, have a high KDR, or even be particularly good at playing games. Playing games for an audience now seems a legitimate way to make a little cash if you can pull the numbers. Not just top players like Fatal1ty can do this, but quite possibly just a guy who makes you feel as though he could be sitting on your couch. There’s a lot to be said for that and I encourage anyone to check out some play-throughs of stellar games and, once you’ve found the story, check out different players who upload. Find the gamer who tickles your fancy and enjoy a game like it wasn’t intended to be enjoyed.

-Cheefbast

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by | August 14, 2013 · 2:44 pm

Winning Science August 14, 2013

All the in-the-know geeks are talking about space news these days, it seems.  NASA’s space probe Juno is halfway to the planet Jupiter on a five year voyage to check out the sights and sounds.

junos_c

A five year mission…really? There had better be some boldly going.

Interestingly enough, Jupiter is also on MY list of places to visit, right after Disney World and Alpha Centauri.

The researchers who have been living in a dome to simulate life on Mars have finally emerged after a four month experiment to determine the types of foods that could be consumed by astronauts headed to the Red Planet.  Apparently, they all craved Nutella while they were there.

If this is the future of space travel I may need to reconsider my desire to go into space.

If this is the future of space travel I may need to reconsider my desire to go into space.

They also made a Cajun jambalaya out of Spam—not my choice of ingredients, but hey! Spam is definitely non-perishable.

Scientists have created a list of twelve asteroids that they say could be captured and studied.  Not only is cost a factor in roping an asteroid, but scientists also have to beware accidentally propelling an asteroid directly into the earth and causing a catastrophe.  These twelve asteroids, they say, are of an easily manageable size.

Think this, only much bigger.

Think this, only much bigger.

I never had a pet rock, but somehow the idea of a pet asteroid is far more appealing!

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by | August 13, 2013 · 11:17 am

Review: Dark Star

DarkStar

“…instead of the most impressive student film ever made, we had the least impressive professional film ever made”. This is how writer Dan O’Bannon described Dark Star, a zany space adventure that is far more influential to both film makers and the movie going public than most people are aware. The plot follows the crew of the deep space scout ship Dark Star as they travel the galaxy looking for unstable planets to demolish. As they continue their travels, their ship is falling apart around them, and due to their near light speed transits only three years has passed for them.

This is one of my favorite B movies, hands down. It hits me in all the right places, from campy humor to science fiction adventure. It also tickles my geek fancy because so many people who became famous later were involved with this movie early in their career. There is lots of geek trivia to be found in this film. Although it was a student film that was expanded into a full length feature, as a B movie, the effects, writing and acting are really of a higher than expected quality.

Dark Star was a stepping stone in the career of one of Hollywood’s most prolific, though maybe not best, directors. Originally, it was the master thesis for John Carpenter, later known for movies such as Halloween and Escape from New York. This movie really set the tone for the B movies for which Carpenter would become known and established a higher bar when it came to quality of B movies in the 70’s.  Movies don’t necessarily have to be good to have an impact.  Low budget films are often the perfect place for new talent to make their name.

By today’s standards, Dark Star’s effects are unimpressive and beyond antiquated, but it was released in 1974, three years before Star Wars was released and changed the special effects game. While the movie obviously produced by people who were just starting out in their field of, the effects are campy without being over the top or just plain bad.  Rather than try to be overly ambitious, the movie creators chose to stick with simple ones that could be pulled off with relative ease. Many of these effects were designed by Ron Cobb who would later gain notoriety for his work as a conceptual designer on many blockbuster films such as Star Wars, The Abyss, and of course Alien.

Dark Star is the first film written by Dan O’Bannon, who would later go on to write Alien and Return of the Living Dead (the first movie in which zombies crave brains). The characters are reasonably well developed, especially O’Bannon’s own character of Pinback.  As it turns out, Pinback isn’t actually Pinback.  Instead he is Fuel Specialist Bill Frugge who was wearing Pinback’s spacesuit after the real Pinback committed suicide. When it came time for launch Frugge couldn’t figure out how to work the spacesuit’s radio to inform people that he wasn’t Pinback so he got shipped off instead.  Being out of place, Pinback provides an amusing commentary on events and a significant lack of professionalism.

Dan O'Bannon's Pinback

Dan O’Bannon’s Pinback

Dark Star also provides a believable look into what life would be like for a crew stuck on a small spaceship for three years.  The ship is falling apart, crew members have died, and those that remain have to stave off boredom and attempt to maintain their sanity.  One crew member spends all his time in an observation dome look out at the stars and Pinback himself has adopted a pet alien.

The alien is played by a painted beach ball with rubber monster claws for feet. The seams of the beach ball are even still visible underneath the paint. Despite this, the alien is still one of the best elements of this movie.  The scenes in which Pinback chases the alien through the ventilation system later became the inspiration for Alien.  (Dark Star is basically the story of truck drivers in space as a dark comedy, whereas Alien makes that same idea into a beautiful horror film.)  So while the beach ball alien bears no resemblance to the Xenomorph, it is, in fact, its early ancestor.

If this cost more than $10 I'd be very surprised.

If this cost more than $10 I’d be very surprised.

There is very little about this film that I don’t enjoy.  However, there are several times where the dialogue is too quiet because of that what is going on in the scene becomes lost. Since the plot is pretty thin that start this only serves to add confusion. The space suits are another complaint of mine. Most of the suit is fine—especially for low budget science fiction—but the chest pieces on both space suits are baking pans. I’m not joking here. One is most definitely a muffin pan and the other is a deep metal baking pan with an air filter attached to it. I know these guys were working with a limited budget, but have to believe that they could have scraped together an extra 20 bucks for some kind of busted electronics they could have used instead of such obviously recognizable household items.

Tell me that isn't a muffin pan.

Tell me that isn’t a muffin pan.

Dark Star is a B movie to be sure, but it is one of the truly outstanding ones. The number of people who got their starts on this movie and the other movies it has spawned or been referenced by gives this movie a longevity that would not be expected of what is essentially an overgrown student film. With everything that Dark Star has to offer, I give it 4.5 Death Stars.

4.5 Death Stars

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by | August 12, 2013 · 6:18 pm

Editorial | Review: Saga

With the upcoming release of the thirteenth installment of Brian Vaughan’s Saga, now seems as good a time as any to briefly review the previous twelve issues.

As someone relatively new to comics in general, I was pleased to start Saga right at the beginning, before realities split and the universe has been reimagined with a new history four or five times (I’m looking at you, DC Comics).  Fiona Staples’ artwork in the book is simple, but not overly so.  Action is clear and it is easy to understand what is happening.

Their facial expressions capture the essence of these characters, but the controversial pose is unnecessary.

The story is narrated by the infant who is being born in the first frames of the book, as a memoir.  This makes the entire issue (and subsequent ones) feel like a prologue to the main storyline, but no main storyline ever actually appears.  Instead, the narrative follows the exploits (sexploits?) of Alana and Marko, two creatures who are defying a centuries long feud between their species to fall in love.  Alana gives birth to their daughter, Hazel, the story narrator and then the pair begins a mad dash to get somewhere that they and their daughter would be safe.

Alana is a winged creature from the planet Landfall.  She seems to be undereducated and has a brash attitude that has helped her survive a hard life, but makes me concerned for the survival of her marriage.  Her husband Marko’s character seems likeable and a little bit ordinary.  His people are from one of Landfall’s moons, called Wreath, and sport mountain goat horns growing from their heads.  He is disillusioned with violence and warfare but is torn between a pacifist life and protecting his new family.

The characters are all fairly believable, considering that the main couple has either wings or horns, and that the supporting cast includes an enormous half woman/half spider, and a race of humanoids with old fashioned tube television sets for heads.  The writing style is clear and concise.  The problem that I have is that there is no discernible plot line.  The adventures are told in a rambling fashion and feel as though they are leading up to some main plot, which never materializes.

The top half of a ghost wants to permanently bond with my infant’s soul? Sure! What could go wrong?

I appreciate the effort Vaughan makes to flavor Saga with unusual elements; and some of the strangeness of the characters and locations really appealed to my sense of whimsy.  I liked the idea of a spaceship forest, where the fruit of the trees is not edible, but rather rocket fueled.  Another interesting character was the Lying Cat, a large jungle cat who hisses, “Lie!” at anyone who attempts to twist the truth in its presence.

While the artwork is crisp and easy to follow, I did find that the art was occasionally unnecessarily graphic (read: lots of gratuitous sex).  Considering that the writing was not lazy and that the stories progressed well on their own, it seemed ridiculous that the book would work so hard to shock its audience.  The cover art especially seemed chosen to be deliberately controversial.

All in all, I enjoyed Saga, and I look forward to the next six issue story arc, but I do not see that it merits the critical acclaim it has received.  From me, it gets four out of five Death Stars.

4 Death Stars

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