DEATH NOTE (live-action movie) – REVIEW (spoilers!!)

So as a follow up to my finishing watching the Death Note anime, I did a bit of reading on Wiki, hoping to clarify a few of my mind’s issues, and came upon the fact that there was a live-action movie version of the manga, with a few key differences. I stopped reading there, and decided to watch it for myself first.

And I must say, I’m glad I did.

I’m not big on film versions changing huge amounts of an established fictional work. I can understand it with Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy — it’s such a huge work that doing a proper version including everything would turn it into a twenty four hour long film. In much the same way I can understand the film version of Rowling’s Order of the Phoenix doing the same thing.

But I was intrigued as to whether it would work shortening 12+ hours of anime into around what, 5 hours of film…

As it turns out, it worked beautifully. While certain parts of the plot naturally had to be changed, the whole thing felt so much tighter. There was no messing about with Near and Mello. No Yotsuba Corporation. No extraneous shinigami and plot turns.

And, perhaps most importantly, it was a battle of wits between Light and L for the whole 5 hours.

I won’t say a lot about the acting or casting, mainly because it’s not really very important to me in this instance. The character designs are taken straight from the anime for the most part. What really mattered was how the story was told, and in my opinion it was the more fluid, poignant version of the events surrounding the Death Note.

Yes it changes the ending in order to keep L alive long enough to unmask Kira properly. But it was handled poignantly. It also includes a bit of a monologue for Misa, which if you’ve just read my thoughts on the anime, you’ll know I was wanting. In some ways, because the cast was kept smaller, the emotional attachment to the characters was tighter. I was happy Chief Yagami survived, though I felt quite sad that he had to keep the secret of Kira/Light’s relationship from his daughter and wife.

Really the only thing I felt that the live action version lacked was the music. Unlike in the anime, where music played an important part in building suspense, I didn’t really notice the music in the film. I also kinda missed the internal monologues of Light and L, but in a film version too many of those would get very confusing so I’m glad they didn’t have many. Just enough to give away thoughts if absolutely necessary.

All in all, I’d recommend watching it after watching the anime run rather than before.

Score: 8.6/10

DEATH NOTE (anime) – REVIEW (spoilers!!)

I’m very particular about what I watch. Sounds like a crazy statement considering my confession to liking Gene Roddenberry’s Andromeda. But yes, I very rarely watch stuff that isn’t recommended to me by at least one person whom I trust.

I first heard about Death Note on the IGN TV site and read a couple of reviews of miscellaneous episodes. It sounded interesting, and I put it on my (fairly extensive) list of anime to watch. This list is kind of a wishlist, as most of the time I never get any of the stuff on it to actually watch.

But then I read more reviews of it, saying how it was an interesting psychological thriller full of cat-and-mouse intellectual games, and my curiosity grew.

And then of course a couple of friends told me to watch it. So I spent a couple of weeks getting hold of all 37 episodes of the anime, and sat down to watch them (in-between other stuff).

Synopsis

It’s quite difficult to write a real synopsis of the anime as a whole, but it revolves around the eponymous “Death Note”, a notebook that grants its owner the power to kill anyone whose name they write on its pages while having that person’s face clear in their mind. It is found by a college student called Light who, being incredibly bright and therefore a bit bored, and also being disgusted by the evil and violence he sees in the world, decides to test the notebook to see if it is true. Upon finding that it does indeed do what it says on the tin, he then devises a way to cleanse the world through Justice and, throughout the first few episodes, becomes “Kira” — from the English word “killer”.

Soon the police begin working with a famous detective called L to thwart Kira/Light’s plans, and indeed a game of intellectual cat-and-mouse begins.


Thoughts

I like programmes that make me think. Especially ones that involve some kind of moral or philosophical debate. My already confessed love for Tru Calling and, to a certain extent, the original design philosophy for Andromeda is to do with this. Any kind of musing on the extent of human good and evil, or cosmic balance, interests me. It’s a theme I draw upon in my own writing, though it’ll take a couple of novels before you start to see just what’s going on there.

Death Note is a prime example of the kind of thinking/debating I like to see explored. While, in my opinion, the end of the series seems a little bit rushed and not quite as well-thought-out as the initial 20 odd episodes, there is nevertheless not a single episode I didn’t enjoy.

(I also must admit I didn’t like the change in intro/ending music that happened halfway through the run, but I skipped through that most of the time anyways.)

Really it isn’t the actual end of the series that I have an issue with. The actual story, though a little rushed (I understand that a large chunk of the original manga was condensed for the second arc of the anime, while the first arc was played out in full) was pulled off well. It was the actual characters themselves that lost a bit of credibility: especially Light himself. He went from being a meticulous genius to an almost dull, impetuous youth. Now I can see that this might have been designed to show a descent into arrogant madness, but for me it didn’t work. Light spent the last few episodes doing nothing but waiting for Near to do something.

Yeah, the more I think about it, the more the second half — the last 15 episodes or so — bug me. It was all about proving stuff we, the viewer, already knew, rather than foil and counter-foil as the Light/L storyline had been.

I must admit, I did find myself quite involved with certain aspects of the characters in the second half though. When Light kills Kiyomi Takada, the girl whom he says he wants to make a goddess of his new world, I actually said out loud “You bastard!”

With Misa, I was never entirely certain she was going to be anything except a puppet for him. With Takada, I actually believed that Light had found someone whom he would treat as an intellectual and romantic equal. This made her death a much more shocking revelation of Light’s depravity.

I suppose it’s the romantic in me that wants to find out more about Misa’s feelings after Light’s defeat too. While I felt the final moments of the series were given the time needed to satisfy the audience and absorb Light’s defeat and descent into madness, Misa looking out over the city could have worked better with some kind of final monologue from her.


Review

So, on to an actual review. Death Note is, in my opinion, a must see for any fan of anime that doesn’t just watch it for the crazy action scenes. There aren’t many in Death Note. While there are a couple of short physical exchanges between Light and L, there’s no super high jumping or lightning bolts being thrown around. It is all very grounded in realistic actions, as befitting a show whose main way of entertaining is getting the audience to think. It is character driven, not action driven.

The version I watched was a fansub, and as such had — at several points — fairly dodgy English subtitles. I don’t know what the actual English dubbing is like, but the original Japanese voices are very expressive.

The animation is fluid and very well done. The use of lights and darks, shadows, and saturated colour schemes in character’s internal monologues really adds to the design/look of the series. You KNOW when Light is being Kira, or when L’s brain is working overtime. It’s revealed not just in their words, but in their stylised character designs on screen.

One of the series’ strengths — apart from the new intro/credits music introduced halfway through — is the music. The score is very strong, poignant, and reflects the action on screen well. I must admit I can’t help but compare L’s theme to the theme for The Exorcist, but that maybe only adds to the character for me.


So over all, I give the series an 8.5/10.

The Show's The Thing...

I don’t watch television. Well known “fact”. It’s what I tell all the kids at school whenever they ask.

But as with many things about me, it’s a half-truth. Because in actual fact, I do watch television programmes. I just rarely watch them a) when they air; and b) on tv.

This week is always a fairly important week for me in terms of television. It’s the finale week for most American shows, which I normally download from t’internet and watch a day or so after they’ve aired.

Two shows that finished their seasons this week have kept me utterly hooked for the entire season, and last season to boot. While many will completely disagree with me over Smallville being compelling viewing, almost everyone I know who watches House loves it. As well as these two, I’m also watching season 4 of Battlestar Galactica, season 4 of Doctor Who and, sadly, season 2 of the BBC’s Robin Hood. Oh, and the anime Death Note as well.

Smallville

Smallville as a show has always fascinated me. In a good half of the episodes, the plots are so utterly preposterous and mashed together that I can’t help but wonder why I even bother. And then the overall story arch pulls me back. Season 7 saw some of the biggest changes to the Superman mythos. The introduction of Kara Kent — aka Supergirl — could have worked really well. And yet she was horribly underused. The stuff with Braniac and Bizarro, so promising at the start of the series, flopped quickly, and while James Marsters put on his usual brilliant performance as a not-quite-Spike-from-Buffy character, his material and shining moments were too few and far between.

When I heard that Michael Rosenbaum (Lex Luthor) was “leaving” the show for season 8, and that Kirsten Kreuk (Lana Lang) was also leaving, I had mixed feelings. I’m glad that Lana has left. The whole Lana/Clark love dynamic was stretched so so thin over the last couple of seasons, and there was nothing fresh to inject into it anymore. I think it is good that the writers have realised this, and written her out in a fairly poignant goodbye that saw some excellent acting by Kreuk — and a surprising amount of emotion from Tom Welling’s normally stoic Clark Kent. Lana was right: she has been holding Clark — and the writers — back for too long; and it was nice to see a touching moment with Lois and Clark near the end of the episode.

I hear that Rosenbaum will be back in a few episodes in season 8, which is almost a necessity considering how season 7 finishes. The Fortress of Solitude crashing down on both an enlightened Lex and an incapacitated Clark was a fairly dodgy special effect to be honest, but it was a good episode to end the creative inputs of Miller and Gough, the guys responsible for the last 7 seasons. All the storylines, the threads, are relatively nicely tied up now. And yes, you may be able to tell from my tone that I believe another season might be pushing it a bit. But likewise, there’s something irritatingly compelling about this bad-is-good show that will leave me unsatisfied.

I remember reading somewhere that Miller and Gough stated explicitly that Clark Kent would never fly while they were in charge. That lapsed a bit when CK became Kal’El back at the start of…was it season 6?... but I really hope that changes now. Far too many stories are based on the idea that Clark Kent can’t fly, thus drawing the episode out rather than quickening the pace, and some of the travelling sequences are now just getting tedious.

Over all, yes I am glad Smallville has been renewed for another season. Less Lex and no Lana should hopefully make for a fresh breath of life into the series, and god I hope there’s some better quality writing now that the mushy Clark/Lana stuff is out of the way. Sadly, the season 8 premiere will probably deal with the events of 7’s season finale all too quickly and then we’ll be back to normal. It’d be nice, just for once, for the season to start well and pick up pace, rather than slump in the middle. Here’s hoping!

House M.D.

House is probably one of my favourite shows, and favourite characters, of any show ever. He’s acerbic, he’s cynical, he’s manipulative, he’s devious, and he’s incredibly charismatic. All phrases that I hope someone ascribes to me some day. Season Four of the eponymous medical drama has been consistently excellent television, though I’m reliably informed that the medicine isn’t going to win any awards for its logic and consistency. Almost every episode has me either in stitches or crying, and this can only be a good thing.

While I admit I could just watch the series for Hugh Laurie alone, I’m happy to report that the quality of ladies on the show also influences my decisions. Lisa Edelstein as Cuddy is still an excellent casting choice (and looker) despite her reduced part in season 4 due to the sheer number of cast members. Likewise, Jennifer Morrison’s Dr. Cameron is still infinitely fanciable. Wish the addition of the very sexy Olivia Wilde as the quite-possibly-bisexual “Thirteen” I found myself actually distracted from the plot at various points, which I never expected in this show. :D

The two-part finale of s4, cut short like most programmes due to the Writers’ Guild strike a couple of months ago, was quite frankly one of the best episodes of any TV show I’ve watched in a long time. The only memorable comparisons are the emotional impact at the end of Buffy the Vampire Slayer series 5, when Buffy dies; and the storytelling impact end of Tru Calling series 1, where we find out a lot about the nature of her abilities and the balance of power (and damn if I’m not still bitter at that show being cancelled partway into season 2!!)

I’m not going to spoil the events at the end of this one, because — unlike Smallville — I truly believe that everyone I know who actually reads this blog should watch House. Yes I know I’m horrendously biased, but chances are if you know me at all, you should be used to the type of person I am, the type of wit I like, and thus the type of entertainment you’ll find on House M.D.

Other Television

I’ll admit it. I don’t like Catherine Tate particularly. When I heard she was due to return as Donna Noble for season 4 of Doctor Who I was initially petrified. But I have to hand it to her: while the series has been a bit flat in places (I actually didn’t enjoy the Agatha Christie episode, sorry guys!), she has surprised me in terms of her acting ability. I’m really hoping the season is working up to something though, because while with the last three series there has been some link, some tie to hint towards the greater end, I will admit now that I don’t think I’ve noticed any such clue this season — unless it’s the bees thing! There, I’ve written it down. Hopefully I won’t try and retcon this in a later blog when something glaringly obvious has been revealed towards the end of the series. ~_~;;

Battlestar Galactica series 4 continue to go from strength to strength as far as I’m concerned. It’s a show that knows its concluding season, and this is great from a storytelling point of view. A few American reviewers have criticised the show for too much talking. To these I point them towards the nearest Deep Space 9 dvd collection to show them what a show that really does too much talking is like!! The dynamic between the characters is tight. The plots and storytelling are compelling. The acting is excellent across the board. And who know Alessandro Juliani had such a good singing voice! Well, decent anyways. Better than me! >_>

I’m not going to talk about Robin Hood. I was enjoying watching season 2 to a point, but then I heard that they killed off the one character that I watched the show for at the end of the season, and that kinda ruined everything for me so I haven’t watched it further. I’ll get round to it. Eventually.

And finally, Death Note. I don’t watch a huge amount of anime. For a reason: a lot of it is grounded in the same kind of styling and approach that I’m taking for my novel. Or rather, my novel is based loosely on anime sensibilities (I think it’ll make a good anime or live action/CGI film actually). And thus I don’t watch much because I think I’ll taint my ideas or try to alter them to fit what has already been proven to work. Death Note seems light years away from my story though, and I’ve been dying to see it, so I’m slowly working my way through it. I’m not very far, simply due to games and other tv and life, but I’m convinced that its one of the better anime series I’ve seen.

I’ll do a more indepth review on these series when they are finished. And yes, I know I promised a review of some books a few blogs back too. They’re on the cards!

~J

On the subject of peaks...

Yeah I know it’s late. I’ve been busy. Took me a while to decide on a topic for this blog, and then things kinda fell together based on recent experiences and decisions I’ve made. Sounds a bit profound really, but I doubt you’ll be thinking that at the end of the blog :P

For the last, well, couple of years really, I’ve tried to get into games that weren’t Final Fantasy XI: Online or World of Warcraft. I tried Guild Wars, but despite how lush it is to look at, it couldn’t hold my attention due to a shoddy (in my opinion) combat system. I tried Lord of the Rings: Online, but again, while it was very pretty (especially on decent machine) it wasn’t anything I hadn’t seen in WoW — though I admit, emotes for /smoke and the player music system were kinda cool. Again, it couldn’t hold my attention.

I used to pour hours of my life into FFXI, and still do on WoW, but there is only so often you can complete the same daily quest or spend looking for a group for an instance/party. I used to spend my WoW time while waiting for instances exploring the world of Azeroth and Outland, flying or riding literally to every corner of the map to see what I could see, often risking drowning or an incredibly long and tedious journey back. Sometimes that peninsula at the bottom of the map held secret places full of creatures you wouldn’t otherwise have seen. Other times it was a dead end where no one was expected to really go. Either way, there was always something to see.

Until, y’know, I ran out of things to see.

I’ve always liked game graphics. I’m an artist, and I’m really into character and architecture/landscape design for these kinds of things. I get annoyed when I read forum posts for WoW where people moan that there isn’t enough individuality, or this, that, or the other is just a recolour of some other model. Rather than focusing specifically on stats and epics and individuality, people should take a look around them at overall scope and design of the world their imaginary characters inhabit. Yeah, we all like to be individual. We like to look cool. And yes, sometimes Blizzard’s item set designers go for the supposedly “lazy” route and do recolour sets. So what!? You don’t HAVE to get those items you don’t like the look of. If you want it so that you’ve got the best equipment, then you’re doing it for the stats surely?

One thing that appeals to me about the Korean “grind-fest” MMOs is that, much like Guild Wars, your character class really dictates the outfits you wear. There is a very stylish approach to equipment — it’s pretty much all cosmetic — which is completely different to how WoW does it. Even in FFXI, there has been a real drive over the last 2 expansions to enable players to collect stylistically cohesive sets of equipment: starting with Artefact armour and Race-Specific-Equipment, and branching out to new sets for Assault, Conquest, whatever (I’m a bit out of touch these days). Getting one’s final piece of AF at lv.60 and being able to wear the full set was a gratifying experience, even if the set didn’t always suit your character model very well. Spence’s Elvaan warrior looked very, very daft, for example.

I’ve been looking at a lot of concept art for games such as Lineage II and Rappelz lately, and there are some very distinctive things about their style. Their character designs are obviously more Eastern in appearance, but there is a certain western sensibility about the outfits and architecture in places — slowly the cultural reservations over clothing are being broken down by Westernised notions that yes, sex sells.

I downloaded Rappelz and had a quick bash to see what it was like, and it was less the game and more certain aspects of animation and character design that struck me.

Namely, that the female characters are all remarkably well endowed.

This brings me on to the first of two observations related to this month’s hot new MMO: Age of Conan. It is receiving a lot of hype, especially by less mature people, about how it is the new WoW-beater and would improve on everything that WoW does. I’ll probably discuss this in a later blog as I discover more similarities between the two games, but today I’m focusing on characters and visuals.

I was messing around with the character creation options yesterday afternoon, and try as I might, I simply couldn’t create a female avatar who looked…well…normal? Don’t get me wrong, I’m really impressed with the customisation options in AoC, but if I’m going to create an Assassin character, I just have issues with said character having *huge* pendulous breasts. Sure from what I’ve seen on the other characters I have, said breasts are animated very well, and seem to move quite naturally — unlike the over-inflated balloons in games such as Dead or Alive or Rappelz (where individual breasts seem to be bigger than characters’ heads) but I’d expect more control. Yes, there *is* a Breast Slider as well as a Chest Slider. So you can have smaller breasts on a wide torso, or vice versa, but my point still stands. Compare these 3 extreme “defaulted” body types:



I’ve almost always painted fantasy women with large breasts, simply due to my perception that this is a convention of the genre — but it is a perception that I’ve spent much of the last year breaking out from. There’s at least one girl I’m very fond of who can prove to me that women can look sexy, enticing, and alluring without having two water melons bouncing around in their bras.

So yes, while I applaud Funcom for their customisation options in AoC (there really is a LOT you can do to individualise your avatar) I wish it broke the fantasy mould a little further. The characters truly are beautiful works of art (I’ll illustrate when I can), with fairly slick animations, but the female avatars do seem to adhere too much to the teenage boy syndrome of “bigger boobs are better” — no offense intended to people who don’t share my particular lack of enthusiasm about large breasts: I recognise that this is individual taste.

Compare these screenshots for a taste of what I mean:



So that’s my rant about boobs over.

I want to end up with some pictures of peaks of a different kind. Going back to things I like to do and see: I like landscapes and sweeping scenery, vistas in my games. This was one thing LotRo did very well. The landscapes were very pretty if your machine could handle it. AoC does extremely well too. The land that it paints is dark, dismal, with Pict and Vanir bodies dismembered and hung up on pikes, people hanging from rafter beams in forgotten city alleyways, ground splattered with blood.

But it also has views like these taken from the top of a mountain. At the bottom of the mountain the Vanir (Viking-types) have set up camp, hiding in trees and rude tents. As I went up the mountain the scenery changed and you could almost *feel* the air getting fresher and brighter. Pity about the cobwebs and spiders that lurked here. *shudder*



And then as I went even further up, the ground started icing over and I suddenly got to appreciate just how much effort had been put in as the textures blended together, the footstep sounds turned to that lovely crunching sound of walking on crisp snow, and the view turned out like this. Couldn’t help myself. Had to take a couple of screenshots.



I don’t know what the same view would look like on a lesser rig (and remember, mine isn’t anything hugely special!) though I imagine that there would be a fair amount of fogging at a lesser draw distance, but either way I was impressed with my view from this mountain.

Life in General

As for life, my back is getting better now. Not much twitching unless I’m teaching, when it does tend to get a bit strained. Doing this coming Friday at Pensnett which should be easy enough, though it IS the last day of the half term so I shouldn’t get my hopes up too much I don’t think. Then in the evening we’re off into Wolverhampton to see the new Indiana Jones movie, which I’m hoping will be excellent. Someone has suggested that we go in fancy dress as characters/archetypes from the movies. If only I had the money to accessorise!! Still, I shall go as some Marcus Brody-type bumbling academic and hope that it passes as fancy dress more than “don’t you wear that to work anyways?!” >_>

-Blog Ends-

~Now thou art come unto a feast of death~

(Henry VI 4.5.7)

I dislike Summer, in many ways. It brings with it buzzing insects that keep you awake at night, hours of heat that bog you down, a slew of awful "blockbuster" movies at the cinema, and general apathy in kids who would much rather be outside than sat in a classroom cramming for SATs or GCSEs.

This bears little relevance to today's blog, but I just figured it was worth mentioning. I'm sat in the dining room and I'm sweltering rather than going to lie down in the dark upstairs and sweltering.

No today, as you may have gathered from the blog title, I wish to talk about battle. I'm not talking world conflict here, I'm of course talking about battle in computer games. Specifically, the nature of Player versus Player (PvP) combat in two games - World of Warcraft (WoW), and Age of Conan (AoC).

World of Warcraft has come under a lot of fire since Blizzard released the Burning Crusade (TBC) expansion pack. In some ways I don't and can't understand why. Lots and lots of people moan about how the endgame was better before, and that since then its just been dumbed down and diluted. I can't comment. I didn't do endgame stuff before TBC was released anyways. Though I have heard that, apart from Naxxramas, which was apparently of excellent quality, the 40-man raid stuff was in actual fact a bit wank. So I haven't missed much in that sense.

PvP in WoW is a mixed bag. Basically it all comes down to the Arena system these days, and I freely admit the system - while great in terms of rewards for casual noobs like me - is actually not one I'm good at. Small-scale PvP like this just isn't my forte. As I've been showing in CoD4 multiplayer, I simply don't have the reactions for PvP. Hell, as a healer I barely have the reaction time for a 10-man Karazhan raid. So much to keep track of, so many buttons, so many abilities. I suppose that is the bane of the Priest in PvP/Raiding - lots of versatility but BOY do you have to think fast to use it.

No, my main focus on PvP in WoW has always been the battlegrounds. Larger scale, less punishing on the team if (when >_>) I fuck up. And, over the course of a few days/weeks, you can grind enough honour points to get some decent equipment. Or, at least, I could do if I hadn't burned out on WoW PvP grinding for some shiny swords for my rogue that I've barely played since.

WoW PvP is often about gear and class combinations. Not a huge amount of skill involved from what I've seen. He with the bigger axe wins. But like I say, I'm not really qualified to talk about the pros and cons of the system. I just know that, when I started playing WoW in the first beta test way back when, I rolled on a PvP server and hated it as soon as I moved out of the relatively safe starter territories.

You see, I have no problem with killing other players. When I'm IN battlegrounds, I tend to enjoy them. Even if we're losing. Because generally I get swept away in the flow and atmosphere, even though I'm not great at it.

What I don't like is, as a lv.24 hunter questing in Ashenvale, some lv.38 Horde rogue waiting till I'm at 10% life fighting a spider and stabbing me till I die. Which doesn't take long. At all. Ganking is, quite simply, annoying.

"That's PvP though!" people cry on the forums. "It adds to the excitement!"

Does it? Killing someone ten levels lower, with half your hitpoints, is exciting?! No. It's EASY. There's no challenge to be had here. There's no skill involved.

"It's the nature of the game!"

No. It's human nature. To be assholes, even in game. Sure I can appreciate that killing people who don't have a chance to win might be vaguely therepeutic. But seriously, it's all over so soon, what's the point?

So this last weekend, I was playing Age of Conan. The open beta client had been patched up and was running pretty darned smooth. All characters lv.2 and above had an item in their inventory to make them lv.20 with decent equip. And all the servers were flagged as Free-For-All PvP.

What that basically meant is that, outside cities, everyone was fair game. You can kill friends, enemies, guild members, etc.

And thus the kill frenzy brought out the worst kind of people. People who grouped up and camped spawn points and instantly ganked everyone before the load screen had disappeared for the unlucky guy or gal who'd already been killed elsewhere. I spent a long while just Hiding and reading global chat, and people were finding it FUN just to camp these places for the free kills. There was no trying to justify it as testing the PvP system: one guy versus four isn't gonna last long enough for them to be testing anything anyway. They were, quite simply, just out to cause grief and get as much senseless enjoyment of their own limited superiority as they can.

In battlegrounds in WoW, very few people camp the graveyards. This is because there's a res timer and generally 3 or more people all respawn at once. In AoC, there was no such timer, so people were respawning solo. There was also no limited window of invulnerability at respawn, though it has been hinted that this may have been a bug in the end beta client. I hope it was, though it won't make a huge difference to me.

I will be rolling on a PvE server, just as I ended up doing with WoW. I have no problem with PvP. I respect people who live for developing the skills to do it properly and do it well. I have problems with griefers and gankers and just general wankers with no code of honour or principles, out for cheap thrills and cheap kills. I haven't read the Conan books. I don't know if the warriors in his stories had any kind of code of honour, respect for fellow warriors etc. I don't know if Conan himself would have taken advantage of a wounded enemy soldier and killed him. Maybe he would have done. It would certainly seem the sensible thing to do in a story.

But in a living world like those found in MMORPGs, I've always found a little courtesy goes a long way.

Sad thing then that a lot of the people posting on the AoC forums don't seem to quite follow that philosophy. Phrases such as "Go back to WoW" or "roll PvE you carebear" are all too frequent it seems.

Firstly, while I admit that WoW is not a perfect game, I dislike the general attitude that anyone with an opinion about anything that is imperfect about AoC is automatically a spy or mole sent by Blizzard to cause dissent in the ranks.

Secondly I detest the term "carebear". No, I don't want to PvP all the time. Sometimes when I log into an MMO I want to do a couple of quests, pick up some XP, and go to bed. I don't want to have to deal with the added stress of constantly looking over my shoulder to see if some Assassin is gonna sneak up behind me and kill me dead. Sure in some ways that's more gritty and realistic. But I play to have fun. And I think a lot of hardcore FFA-PVP supporters forget that not everyone has fun being ganked 24/7 when they log into a game.

PvP has a place in my life, and I'm hoping that PvP in Conan will be good. After all, I DO enjoy playing as part of a team. But on my time, when I want to. If I have to do it all the time, even against my own guild, my own people, then I simply will find another game, and I think a huge amount of people were put off PvP in Conan simply because of this FFA-PVP "event".

And in some ways, some disgruntled, cynical way, I'm probably happy for that. Let the FFA PVP jerks stay on their servers, and let some skilled PvPers onto the PvE server where they can PvP all the time if they want to. And they WILL want to at lv.80, I'm almost certain.

Will *they* be labelled as carebears? Or will they simply take the stand that playing with ganking assholes with no code of honour or morals isn't REAL pvp. The forums seem to suggest the latter.

So there is hope for the AoC community yet!

~J

~Le Geek, C'Est Chic~

So it’s that time of week again where, because of my New Year’s Resolution, I am inclined to write a blog to keep you up to date with the fascinating playground that is my life. It was an excellent idea in theory, and yes, in most weeks of my life there is generally something exciting or existential to talk about that Friends, Romans or even Countrymen may be interested in.
But not really this week.

So instead I am going to release my inner geek and talk about computer games. After all, it’s what I spend most of my time doing when I’m not reading books, painting, writing my own book, or having career/relationship crises.

I have no issues with geeks/nerds. As far as I’m concerned, many of them are very cool. I’m one of the cool ones. Not one of the weird ones that believe themselves to be Lord Drakulownzor of Clan Urmom. Though now I’ve made that name up on the spot, I wonder if I shouldn’t use it in some game or other as some kind of ironic, post-modernist statement.

I digress.

I currently have a small stockpile of games next to the PC. Some of the boxes are closed, indicating they are not played as often as the open cases. Here is a list of open and closed boxes.

Closed Boxes

1) Lord of the Rings Online: I like LotRO in many ways. It is rather pretty, has a decent enough game system, and features the /smoke emote and a full on musical instrument system which earn it bonus geek points. I bought it way back at release, played it for a month or so, but never quite got into it. While I am a Tolkien fan, I’m not a fanboy, and I just didn’t quite find the game accessible enough, even though it took a lot from WoW. I installed it again recently to give it another go, but once again I just can’t quite take to it. The box will stay closed, and I’ll probably uninstall it soon.

2) American McGee’s Alice: I think I talked about this in a previous blog in one context, but I fancied giving the game ago as I never did finish it, or even get very far. Sadly it runs like crap on my PC, as it’s a pretty old game and requires much less sophisticated technology. I may blitz my way through it with some console commands at some point in time, just to see the plot through to the end, but until then, the box stays closed.

3) Gears of War: Not entirely sure *why* this box is even down here. I’ve finished the game, and have little interest in the multiplayer aspect. Will stick it on one of my Shelves o’ Games upstairs shortly.

4) Enemy Territory: Quake Wars: I got this cheap in a sale in GAME. I’ve not even opened the box yet. I may never play it, actually, now I have CoD4. Still, it cost me under a tenner. Box stays closed.

5) Crysis: I was really enthusiastic about Crysis after playing through the demo. Unfortunately the full game couldn’t quite hold my attention, and the copy protection on the disc almost screwed up my PC. The disc now won’t read, and I can’t quite be bothered to exchange it. I have a NoCD patch for the .exe, but just haven’t quite bothered to boot it up when I have so many better “open box” options next to me.

6) Dawn of War: I bought this in Macclesfield when I visited Tom & Rick. It’s a good game. Very pretty. Lots of strategy. Started playing through the Necron campaign, but I’ve never been very good at strat games, so haven’t really played it in a while. I’ll go back to it though, as I *do* love the Necrons.

7) Call of Duty 4: Ummm… the box is only closed ‘cos the multiplayer doesn’t need the disc in the drive. Not really played the single player much. In fact, I’ve only played it once.

Open Boxes

Some of these don’t actually have boxes. This should be more a “Games Wot I Is Playin’” section I guess. Deal with my eccentricities!

1) Call of Duty 4 (Multiplayer): Rick, bless his little cotton socks, demanded that I play CoD4, despite my general moanings about me being awful at FPS games (and most games, but shush!) to the extent that he sent me his spare copy. And yes, I suck at CoD4 multiplayer. Slowing working my work up the ranks, getting shot an awful lot, but generally enjoying it, though it can be frustrating at times as I’m not exactly Mr Twitch Reactions and sometimes I can’t tell friends from enemies >_< But it’s fairly deep for a multiplayer FPS game so I expect to get some use out of it.

2) Assassin’s Creed: Been looking forwards to this little gem since they released it on the XBOX360 and PS3. I must confess that Spence has had the game much less time than I have, and yet is considerably further on. I’ve just been exploring and collecting flags and assassinating random members of the public for shits and giggles. The pace is a tad slower than Prince of Persia, from which it takes a liberal dose of free-running inspiration, but it has a strong plot so far, and I’m looking forwards to where it ends up, even if it is a horrible system hog that I can’t do owt else on the PC while running it.

3) Age of Conan (Open Beta): Must admit, I know about as much about Robert E. Howard’s “Conan” books as the average movie-goer who has seen the Arnie film versions (which I am reliably informed are about as accurate to the books as “Gladiator” is to historical fact — repeater crossbows my ass! Anyways!) So when Spence informed me that there was going to be a Conan MMORPG, and what’s more that I *HAD* to get onto the Beta so he could come round my house and play it, I got interested. After all, Spence is a busy busy PhD man, and little in the world of MMOs gets his blood pumping anymore. So anyways, I did finally get into a beta of it, and I’m pretty impressed with what I’ve seen so far, despite the glaring bugs and slightly dodgy animation in places. Hopefully it’ll all be ironed out for release. I’ll likely buy it and give it a month, as it’s a considerable change of pace and tone from WoW, which is a good thing.

4) Another MMO beta: That is currently under a Non-Disclosure Agreement, so I’m not allowed to talk about it. ~_~;

5) World of Warcraft: Yes, I’m still playing it. With six characters at the level cap now, but with absolutely zero desire (well okay, maybe 5% desire) to level another one, I’m starting to run out of things to do these days. WoW’s pvp system has never really grabbed me, and I don’t do 25-man raiding anymore as it’s a huge time hog and it’s not even particularly fun. I play it for the fun stuff I do sometimes get to do with the guild, as well as just generally “socialising”, as much as any online interaction can earn that monicker.

So yeah. That’s my gaming life (and, arguably, foreseeable future) in a nutshell. The only change I am thinking of making to the Open Box list is Mario Kart for the Wii, which for some reason was sold out across our local shopping centre when I asked my sis to buy it for me (I gave her the money, don’t look at me like that!) the other day. Odd. Apart from that, I don’t *think* there’s anything I’m likely to want to spend my money on any time soon.

Le Geek, c’est Chic

~J