Inception IS worthy of all of its praise.
MASSIVE SPOILERS: http://tinyurl.com/354ok6k
Sunday, 22 August 2010
Saturday, 21 August 2010
Wednesday, 18 August 2010
Snatching the Pebble
This is a fantastic book. It touches on an area I'm specifically fond of - gaming - but actually its appeal is far broader than that. Suits sums it up in his opening, when he says:"It is the attempt to discover and formulate a definition, and to follow the implications of that discovery even when they lead in surprising, and sometimes disconcerting, directions."-p21
This was the aspect that really fuelled my interest unexpectedly, the definitional side of the argument, dressed often as a refutation of Wittgenstein. I might now have to follow up on this, but I wonder if I'll find other books on the subject that are even half as entertaining a read as this one.
That's the great strength of the book. It's as enjoyable as the best fiction, really, laugh-out-loud funny in places, and even dramatic and characterful at times. Suits chooses to address his points in the form of a socratic dialogue between anthropomorphic insects drawn from Aesop's fable. The inherent humour of the idea is obviously just one joke, and would fast become tired, but Suits infuses the ongoing discourse with so many amusing twists and turns and flourishes, and his mouthpieces become characters in their own right. The triumphant return of the Grasshopper in the final chapters is, absurdly, genuinely thrilling.
And as if that wasn't enough, the conclusion reached in those chapters is really jaw droppingly intriguing. It's stated right at the beginning, but in a deliberately riddled form which gives the meat of the book its pretext for unpicking the meaning of 'games'. When things finally come full circle, the moment of comprehension makes the price of entry worthwhile alone.
If only there were more philosophical texts like this. Fantastic, 10/10 stuff.
(I found an abridged exceprt of one of the best chapters online. Check it out, then buy the book!
http://www.senia.com/2006/11/21/ivan-and-abdul-by-bernard-suits-part-i/
http://www.senia.com/2006/11/22/ivan-and-abdul-by-bernard-suits-part-ii/ )
Now reading The Book of Unholy Mischief. Only a scant few pages in, but I don't expect much from it. Seems to suffer badly by being an almost identical tale to Locke Lamora, but without the gift for plot, characters or prose possessed by Lynch.
And on that note, sometime soon I really want to get dug into The Republic of Thieves. The Lamora series has been pretty fun so far, and it quietly promises to become something rather notable.
Similarly, I find myself more eager to pick up A Clash of Kings than I expected to be. Though I found a few elements offputting when I read Game, the strengths of the good characters have lingered in my mind beyond the flaws of the weak ones. So I'll probably get on with that at some point.
And in digital news, I got snared again in Desktop Dungeons tonight. What an amazing game. It's got the most finely tuned balance of depth, elegance, ease of learning, challenge and everything else that I've found in a game. It also succeeds admirably in conjuring up the feel of the best parts of roguelikes without any of the barriers to entry. The new update has tarted things up a bit too, and I'm liking the change to dieties. No sooner had I mentioned it to a friend than I had to dive back in and I didn't stop until I'd ran a monk and a paladin through Normal mode. Now I've got designs on a Gnome Warlord for the next. I only hope the guy behind this doesn't leave it a one off.
What else? I'm sure there was something. Oh yes, a project has finally got legs. I may have a new boardgame prototyped by the weekend.
Fun times.
Bonus Credit Question:
If you could replace your body with a synthetic body which would look and feel indistinguishable from a real body, and would never fall prey to illness, would you do it?
That's the great strength of the book. It's as enjoyable as the best fiction, really, laugh-out-loud funny in places, and even dramatic and characterful at times. Suits chooses to address his points in the form of a socratic dialogue between anthropomorphic insects drawn from Aesop's fable. The inherent humour of the idea is obviously just one joke, and would fast become tired, but Suits infuses the ongoing discourse with so many amusing twists and turns and flourishes, and his mouthpieces become characters in their own right. The triumphant return of the Grasshopper in the final chapters is, absurdly, genuinely thrilling.
And as if that wasn't enough, the conclusion reached in those chapters is really jaw droppingly intriguing. It's stated right at the beginning, but in a deliberately riddled form which gives the meat of the book its pretext for unpicking the meaning of 'games'. When things finally come full circle, the moment of comprehension makes the price of entry worthwhile alone.
If only there were more philosophical texts like this. Fantastic, 10/10 stuff.
(I found an abridged exceprt of one of the best chapters online. Check it out, then buy the book!
http://www.senia.com/2006/11/21/ivan-and-abdul-by-bernard-suits-part-i/
http://www.senia.com/2006/11/22/ivan-and-abdul-by-bernard-suits-part-ii/ )
Now reading The Book of Unholy Mischief. Only a scant few pages in, but I don't expect much from it. Seems to suffer badly by being an almost identical tale to Locke Lamora, but without the gift for plot, characters or prose possessed by Lynch.
And on that note, sometime soon I really want to get dug into The Republic of Thieves. The Lamora series has been pretty fun so far, and it quietly promises to become something rather notable.
Similarly, I find myself more eager to pick up A Clash of Kings than I expected to be. Though I found a few elements offputting when I read Game, the strengths of the good characters have lingered in my mind beyond the flaws of the weak ones. So I'll probably get on with that at some point.
And in digital news, I got snared again in Desktop Dungeons tonight. What an amazing game. It's got the most finely tuned balance of depth, elegance, ease of learning, challenge and everything else that I've found in a game. It also succeeds admirably in conjuring up the feel of the best parts of roguelikes without any of the barriers to entry. The new update has tarted things up a bit too, and I'm liking the change to dieties. No sooner had I mentioned it to a friend than I had to dive back in and I didn't stop until I'd ran a monk and a paladin through Normal mode. Now I've got designs on a Gnome Warlord for the next. I only hope the guy behind this doesn't leave it a one off.What else? I'm sure there was something. Oh yes, a project has finally got legs. I may have a new boardgame prototyped by the weekend.
Fun times.
Bonus Credit Question:
If you could replace your body with a synthetic body which would look and feel indistinguishable from a real body, and would never fall prey to illness, would you do it?
Tuesday, 10 August 2010
And We'll All Be Lonely Tonight, And Lonely Tomorrow
There's a scene at the top of the first episode of Moffat and Gatiss' new 'Sherlock' in which invalided Watson discusses his blog with the therapist who encouraged him to start one.
'You need to learn how to be a civillian again; keeping a record of everything that happens to you will help,' she tells him. He glances up and gives her an empty smile.
'Nothing happens to me,' he says.
I think this is my problem too. I find it incredibly hard to write anything, compared to everyone else I know. And what I do write is pretty impersonal in contrast with others, too. But then, every one of my days is exactly the same as the last: I wake up at a stupid time, sit in front of a computer, eat some crap food, and go back to bed. So what's to write?
Anyway, another year another Holmes. So what's this one like? Well, it's an improvement over last Christmas' Downey Jr attempt which, whilst entertaining and well directed, was using the Holmes name as little more than a marketing tool. Should have been the start of a new and potentially promising IP, but no dice. Moderate spoilers follow.
This adaptation is Holmes, anyway. It's not pure Holmes - it is, after all, modern day set - but it's Holmes at the heart. So that's good. I'm glad we're not being saturated by empty-but-bankable names. I wasn't really concerned for this respect, though. Moffat and Gatiss have more artistic integrity than that.
The modernisation was a concern, but is actually pretty good. Holmes' technophilia is fitting and interesting. We see how Holmes changes to fit into the new world of forensics and connectivity. This is ultimately what I feared would be missed, but it wasn't. Good!
I run hot and cold on Cumberbatch (he keeps asking me not to). At times he is very good, and very holmely (Sorry). At other times he doesn't quite work for me. He's a bit younger than I expected them to cast, but this seems to be Moffat's way at the moment, and it's working out alright. Cumberbatch does add a slightly disaffected modern-batcherlor-with-cash arrogant layabout undercurrent to the character. It's good and interesting, another nice manifestation of the modern translation, although occaisionally it spills over too far.
I have more trouble with Martin Freeman's Watson. Is this surprising? Nobody seems to be able to get Watson right. At the least, he is not so far gone as to be a New-Watson-Likes-Jam, but he's a bit dull. He's not dim, mostly, but he is the butt of the jokes sometimes, and whilst he retains the moral compass aspect, it surfaces less often and in milder ways. The flaring arguments of the pair are absent. Freeman plays him fine, in fact he's rather good - particularly in Episode 3 where he solves the Bruce Partington Plans mystery for Mycroft. It's just that I don't think he's written particularly interestingly. He's like Watson with the saturation turned down.
The real issue, might fall between them. Discussing with DJS the point came up that this Holmes has no real pain. So he's really not a sociopath - his behaviour is just 'a bit of a dick' (said with a sideways smile). And because he has no real pain, there is no real source of trouble and concern for Watson, and no conflict between them. And this weakens both.
Meanwhile, everybody hates Moriarty. My own reaction was actually less harsh than most, but I think that was largely because I had been braced for him to suck bollocks from the beginning. He's a charicature, and not remotely Moriarty. That said, the core of the character is not terrible of itself, and would have worked as an original villain, except that the panto performance added to it goes far too far over the top. The problem with portrayals of Moriarty, I think, is that he gets about three lines of dialogue in the entirety of the original source material. The Final Problem is so utterly terrifying because Moriarty is all but invisible, a wraith and an assassin, pursuing Holmes but barely glimpsed.
An unexpected highlight for me was Gatiss' Mycroft. Notsomuch in Episode 1, where he's a bit too much of a comic device, but in Episode 3, where he is actually a character in his own right. I fell for the (somewhat contrived) Moriarty misdirection, and I'm glad he wasn't. But then, he would actually have been better than what we got. (It seems obvious to me that it'll be Mycroft who pulls them out of the fire in the cliffhanger resolution.)
Three episodes isn't much, and I still haven't made a settled opinion on the series. Part of the problem is all three scripts have had their flaws, which makes judging the tone and direction harder. But there's enough there to make some fairly solid judgments.
The modern, high-tech aspect is a winner. It's used judiciously, and captures the cerebral mind-workings of Holmes. The floating phone text device is a good one, as long as they keep using it with restraint. And visually it all looks pretty good. The golem scene is a bit bizarre, sort of tripping into expressionism. Quite nice on its own, utterly unlike the rest. Interesting to imagine what the show might be like if it goes further that way.
But the real problem, the generalised issue that really stems into all of the others, is that the tone of the thing is too whimsical. Just like all the modern Holmes stuff. It takes the idiosyncracies of the character and the cases and plays them lighthearted. Now, this worked well in the sly references to canon (The five pips was inspired), but in terms of the actual vibe of the show it was too light. If I ever adapted Holmes it would be a dark, dark thing. Not humourless: There is plenty of humour in Holmes. But dark. This man is, really, a very unhealthy character, whilst Watson is disaffected and has issues of his own. And many of the crimes they handle are borne out of severe depravity and moral bankruptcy. Holmes should be dark.
For me, the radio adaptation remains head-and-shoulders the best. Merrison and Williams ARE Holmes and Watson. I think it's as good as a straight adaptation could be. So for my money, the real merit in any new adaptation is going to be putting another angle on things, finding something different. 'Sherlock' had the potential to do that, and it still does. I really hope it goes for it.
(Ratings, because I love rating stuff:
A Study in Pink - 8/10
The Blind Banker - 7/10
The Great Game - 8/10, by a whisker.)
'You need to learn how to be a civillian again; keeping a record of everything that happens to you will help,' she tells him. He glances up and gives her an empty smile.
'Nothing happens to me,' he says.
I think this is my problem too. I find it incredibly hard to write anything, compared to everyone else I know. And what I do write is pretty impersonal in contrast with others, too. But then, every one of my days is exactly the same as the last: I wake up at a stupid time, sit in front of a computer, eat some crap food, and go back to bed. So what's to write?
Anyway, another year another Holmes. So what's this one like? Well, it's an improvement over last Christmas' Downey Jr attempt which, whilst entertaining and well directed, was using the Holmes name as little more than a marketing tool. Should have been the start of a new and potentially promising IP, but no dice. Moderate spoilers follow.
This adaptation is Holmes, anyway. It's not pure Holmes - it is, after all, modern day set - but it's Holmes at the heart. So that's good. I'm glad we're not being saturated by empty-but-bankable names. I wasn't really concerned for this respect, though. Moffat and Gatiss have more artistic integrity than that.
The modernisation was a concern, but is actually pretty good. Holmes' technophilia is fitting and interesting. We see how Holmes changes to fit into the new world of forensics and connectivity. This is ultimately what I feared would be missed, but it wasn't. Good!
I run hot and cold on Cumberbatch (he keeps asking me not to). At times he is very good, and very holmely (Sorry). At other times he doesn't quite work for me. He's a bit younger than I expected them to cast, but this seems to be Moffat's way at the moment, and it's working out alright. Cumberbatch does add a slightly disaffected modern-batcherlor-with-cash arrogant layabout undercurrent to the character. It's good and interesting, another nice manifestation of the modern translation, although occaisionally it spills over too far.
I have more trouble with Martin Freeman's Watson. Is this surprising? Nobody seems to be able to get Watson right. At the least, he is not so far gone as to be a New-Watson-Likes-Jam, but he's a bit dull. He's not dim, mostly, but he is the butt of the jokes sometimes, and whilst he retains the moral compass aspect, it surfaces less often and in milder ways. The flaring arguments of the pair are absent. Freeman plays him fine, in fact he's rather good - particularly in Episode 3 where he solves the Bruce Partington Plans mystery for Mycroft. It's just that I don't think he's written particularly interestingly. He's like Watson with the saturation turned down.
The real issue, might fall between them. Discussing with DJS the point came up that this Holmes has no real pain. So he's really not a sociopath - his behaviour is just 'a bit of a dick' (said with a sideways smile). And because he has no real pain, there is no real source of trouble and concern for Watson, and no conflict between them. And this weakens both.
Meanwhile, everybody hates Moriarty. My own reaction was actually less harsh than most, but I think that was largely because I had been braced for him to suck bollocks from the beginning. He's a charicature, and not remotely Moriarty. That said, the core of the character is not terrible of itself, and would have worked as an original villain, except that the panto performance added to it goes far too far over the top. The problem with portrayals of Moriarty, I think, is that he gets about three lines of dialogue in the entirety of the original source material. The Final Problem is so utterly terrifying because Moriarty is all but invisible, a wraith and an assassin, pursuing Holmes but barely glimpsed.
An unexpected highlight for me was Gatiss' Mycroft. Notsomuch in Episode 1, where he's a bit too much of a comic device, but in Episode 3, where he is actually a character in his own right. I fell for the (somewhat contrived) Moriarty misdirection, and I'm glad he wasn't. But then, he would actually have been better than what we got. (It seems obvious to me that it'll be Mycroft who pulls them out of the fire in the cliffhanger resolution.)
Three episodes isn't much, and I still haven't made a settled opinion on the series. Part of the problem is all three scripts have had their flaws, which makes judging the tone and direction harder. But there's enough there to make some fairly solid judgments.
The modern, high-tech aspect is a winner. It's used judiciously, and captures the cerebral mind-workings of Holmes. The floating phone text device is a good one, as long as they keep using it with restraint. And visually it all looks pretty good. The golem scene is a bit bizarre, sort of tripping into expressionism. Quite nice on its own, utterly unlike the rest. Interesting to imagine what the show might be like if it goes further that way.
But the real problem, the generalised issue that really stems into all of the others, is that the tone of the thing is too whimsical. Just like all the modern Holmes stuff. It takes the idiosyncracies of the character and the cases and plays them lighthearted. Now, this worked well in the sly references to canon (The five pips was inspired), but in terms of the actual vibe of the show it was too light. If I ever adapted Holmes it would be a dark, dark thing. Not humourless: There is plenty of humour in Holmes. But dark. This man is, really, a very unhealthy character, whilst Watson is disaffected and has issues of his own. And many of the crimes they handle are borne out of severe depravity and moral bankruptcy. Holmes should be dark.
For me, the radio adaptation remains head-and-shoulders the best. Merrison and Williams ARE Holmes and Watson. I think it's as good as a straight adaptation could be. So for my money, the real merit in any new adaptation is going to be putting another angle on things, finding something different. 'Sherlock' had the potential to do that, and it still does. I really hope it goes for it.
(Ratings, because I love rating stuff:
A Study in Pink - 8/10
The Blind Banker - 7/10
The Great Game - 8/10, by a whisker.)
Saturday, 7 August 2010
But Can You Put Your Hands in Your Head?
So, I saw Inception on Wednesday (but there's no spoilers here). So heavily hyped has it been, I was actually quite prepared for a disappointment. Pleasantly surprising, then, to find that it was a film that deserved hype - albeit perhaps notw quite the absurd amount it has recieved.
I suppose it is this decade's Matrix, although less showy and more thoughtful than that film. It has the same high-concept/action thriller blending. It is, perhaps, too busy. I can seperate out two distinct plot threads that could have been decompressed into more elegant movies each. In fact, far more than that earlier series, here is an idea that meritted a trilogy format. Alas, this is not really Nolan's style. But even lacking that, and with the frustrating corollary that some ideas are not taken as far as one would like, it's a damned good film.
There's plenty of discussion- and thinking-fodder on offer there, but that's what everyone is talking and it doesn't need me to chime in (although I do have a personal pet theory, which I may record later). What I wanted specifically to make mention of was the visuals.
There are some jaw-dropping VFX and action sequences in the film. They're inspired both in terms of the ideas on the screen, and the thinking that has gone into their execution (I am sure some of what I saw must have been wire work, but if so it was the best damned wire work I have ever seen). And aside from this, the whole film looks superb. But here's what I really appreciate: None of it was gratuitous, for its own sake. All the action and effects were born of the concepts, and reinforced them and the story. That's really good, that's what completed the package.
It's cinematic in its truest sense - this is what cinema should be. And it may have swayed me in favour of 3D. I saw this on a pretty small screen, but wow, I would have loved to see that on an iMax in 3D.
Strongly recommended, a 9/10. (Narrowly pipped by Memento as my favourite of Nolan's films, though.)
Tuesday, 27 July 2010
In Living Colour
Friday, 23 July 2010
Review Slew
This week, I 'ave been mostly eating...
Books
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Klay
Starts well, quite episodic, rich setting. Initially has a lightness of touch. Gets more maudlin as it goes on, finishes badly. Still probably worthwhile for anyone with an interest in the Golden Age of Comics trappings. 7/10
A Little History of the World
An interesting curio, with an odd past. Has merit, but what others herald as a 'grandfatherly' or 'magical' tone I find condescending. But then it was originally inteded for children. 5/10
Swann's Way
First book of Proust's A La Recherche du Temps Perdu. Thought I would give it a try, after hearing magnificent things about Proust. After 70 pages of the author talking about loving his mother, I changed my mind.
Now reading: The Grasshopper: Games, Life and Utopia
Anthromorphic insects from the fable of the Grasshopper and the Ant engage in Socratic dialogues to arrive at a philosophy of games (also Life and Utopia). Brilliant, enlightening.
Audio
Sherlock Holmes
The definitive adaptation. Merrison and Williams ARE Holmes and Watson. Various highlights, a few weak points. Coules' adaptations improve whilst Doyle's interest wanes, raising the bar in places (His Last Bow and Casebook). Further Adventures are fun and pitched ever so slightly in humour, rather than poe-faced duplication.
The Signalman and Other Ghostly Tales
Dickens' ghost stories, read by John Sessions. Not really the right atmosphere for bright midsummer evenings, but ripping stuff all the same. Sessions mostly hits it out of the park, though he falters a bit on the Signalman. Sound design lifts it above commercial audiobook quality, with an original suite of music included as an isolated track at the end of the colection. Still a couple of these left to listen to. Eagerly awaiting the Poe release.
Films
Primer
Amazing. Maybe the best time-travel film ever made. Possibly that comparison isn't even applicable. This isn't really even the same genre as 12 Monkeys or Back to the Future or Time Traveller's wife. More like speculative fiction. A classic, perhaps hampered only by a touch of emotional disaffection in places, but hard to say. Often this adds to the cold feel. 10/10, probably.
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Mawkish and morbid. Dreary, dull, sentimental, tiresome. Overlong. Meaningless. Maybe second quarter has a good film lost in it somewhere. 4/10
Gran Torino
Feels like it should have been made in the late 80s. Tone wanders from charicature to humour to gritty drama. A bit weird. Tries to have meaning and garbles it a bit. Also, Clint Eastwood signs about a car over the end credits, which is horrifying. Not too bad, though. Just feels oddly dated. 6/10
Brazil
Aged poorly. A bit too Gilliam for its own good. Still worth a watch, but I had Gilliam-grotesquery fatigue by the end of it. Probably more impact if I had seen this before some of his others. 7/10
TV
Babylon 5
Plot runs out halfway through. Good whilst it lasts. S2 and 3 are excellent. 4 starts excellent and ends not bad, but lags in the middle. Yet to watch 5.
Games
And Yet it Moves
Subjective gravity platformer, with a really cool 'torn paper world' theme. It's high on atmosphere, and there's some really good quality platforming. It has one real flaw, which is that it lacks the feel of smooth control that makes the best platformers so immersive. It's a bit twitchy and finnicky, and you can't help but think it'd be even better if you could pull some mad jumps off. You'll forgive it this after you see the genius of the levels, though. Especially after the snake bite... It has another flaw, external to the game itself - for a game of this length (~4 hours tops, unless you really dig the time trials) its price point is way too high (I got it on offer). 8/10
Jade Empire
Refreshingly different to the usual Bioware RPG mould. All the core elements are there except the combat, but everything is pared down to its essence, and this elegance is carried over to a slick action combat system. It has flaws - some lazy port issues with the controls, a system which sometimes crosses from elegance to oversimplicity, and the plot is not as rich as some of their other titles - but still a game with a much defter touch than, say, Mass Effect.
Mass Effect
Well, now you mention it... I sunk about ten hours into it. Maybe less. At first it felt lovely and cinematic. Then the shitty AI and shitty UI and artifical difficulty and dull writing and bored voice acting cut in. Bleh. 4/10
Shatter
A revelatory update of arcade game Arkanoid (that's the one with the blocks and the paddle). You wouldn't have imagined there was this much scope, but Sidhe have polished it to a mirror shine. Pretty damned compelling. No real negatives to the game itself, only the fact its limited in its breadth. 7/10
Bionic Commando: Rearmed
Not the new one, the update of the arcade/NES game. Sidescrolling platforming centred around grappling hook acrobatics. Very slick, quite a lot of depth, with a range of weapons, enemies and powerups, hidden areas, challenge rooms and some nonlinearity. Difficulty is pretty high, as it was with all games of that era. Way more than a port, the updates to this game are marvellous. Also, it's quite pretty. 8/10
The Misadventures of P.B. Winterbottom
Temporal puzzle platformer which manages to have surprisingly little in common with Braid. Hampered a little by excessive cut-rate Suess humour and a lame attempt at Britishness. Still manages to be engaging at times. Meanwhile, all other aspects tick along nicely. The silent movie trappings, visual and auditory, are a treat. The gameplay is blended close to perfection, with the platforming element not totally subsumed by the puzzles. Puzzles, meanwhile, range from easy to moderately challenging, and the curve is well paced. Quite a lot of variations on the theme are thrown up, rather than relying too heavily on any one idea. Perhaps this has been taken too far - there is room for more levels with the existing mechanics. It is quite short; the main game is probably sub-three hours if you don't get stuck too much. Still, there's a healthy dollop of extra challenge levels which should add another one or two hours. At £3, that's a steal. 8/10
Puzzle Dimension
A subjective gravity/pathfinding puzzler. It's got a good chunk of levels, a good chunk of ideas, and a good difficulty curve. It doesn't do anything surprising or new, though. Just a good, solid puzzler. 7/10
The Dig
Still playing this one. It's a Lucasarts point and click game made my Spielberg. Not as good as the Indy ones, still good.
Aquaria
Underwater Metroidvania. The usual vocabulary of abilities is rendered irrelevant by movement in all four directions. Instead, a complement of special transformations and abilities is implemented off a pleasing musical system. Another highly polished indie game, and a fine example of the genre, I'm still playing this one.
Alien Swarm
Valve's new freebie is a mash up of Left 4 Dead and Space Hulk. The fun potential is high, and I'm eager to get some friends involved.
Books
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Klay
Starts well, quite episodic, rich setting. Initially has a lightness of touch. Gets more maudlin as it goes on, finishes badly. Still probably worthwhile for anyone with an interest in the Golden Age of Comics trappings. 7/10
A Little History of the World
An interesting curio, with an odd past. Has merit, but what others herald as a 'grandfatherly' or 'magical' tone I find condescending. But then it was originally inteded for children. 5/10
Swann's Way
First book of Proust's A La Recherche du Temps Perdu. Thought I would give it a try, after hearing magnificent things about Proust. After 70 pages of the author talking about loving his mother, I changed my mind.
Now reading: The Grasshopper: Games, Life and Utopia
Anthromorphic insects from the fable of the Grasshopper and the Ant engage in Socratic dialogues to arrive at a philosophy of games (also Life and Utopia). Brilliant, enlightening.
Audio
Sherlock Holmes
The definitive adaptation. Merrison and Williams ARE Holmes and Watson. Various highlights, a few weak points. Coules' adaptations improve whilst Doyle's interest wanes, raising the bar in places (His Last Bow and Casebook). Further Adventures are fun and pitched ever so slightly in humour, rather than poe-faced duplication.
The Signalman and Other Ghostly Tales
Dickens' ghost stories, read by John Sessions. Not really the right atmosphere for bright midsummer evenings, but ripping stuff all the same. Sessions mostly hits it out of the park, though he falters a bit on the Signalman. Sound design lifts it above commercial audiobook quality, with an original suite of music included as an isolated track at the end of the colection. Still a couple of these left to listen to. Eagerly awaiting the Poe release.
Films
Primer
Amazing. Maybe the best time-travel film ever made. Possibly that comparison isn't even applicable. This isn't really even the same genre as 12 Monkeys or Back to the Future or Time Traveller's wife. More like speculative fiction. A classic, perhaps hampered only by a touch of emotional disaffection in places, but hard to say. Often this adds to the cold feel. 10/10, probably.
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Mawkish and morbid. Dreary, dull, sentimental, tiresome. Overlong. Meaningless. Maybe second quarter has a good film lost in it somewhere. 4/10
Gran Torino
Feels like it should have been made in the late 80s. Tone wanders from charicature to humour to gritty drama. A bit weird. Tries to have meaning and garbles it a bit. Also, Clint Eastwood signs about a car over the end credits, which is horrifying. Not too bad, though. Just feels oddly dated. 6/10
Brazil
Aged poorly. A bit too Gilliam for its own good. Still worth a watch, but I had Gilliam-grotesquery fatigue by the end of it. Probably more impact if I had seen this before some of his others. 7/10
TV
Babylon 5
Plot runs out halfway through. Good whilst it lasts. S2 and 3 are excellent. 4 starts excellent and ends not bad, but lags in the middle. Yet to watch 5.
Games
And Yet it Moves
Subjective gravity platformer, with a really cool 'torn paper world' theme. It's high on atmosphere, and there's some really good quality platforming. It has one real flaw, which is that it lacks the feel of smooth control that makes the best platformers so immersive. It's a bit twitchy and finnicky, and you can't help but think it'd be even better if you could pull some mad jumps off. You'll forgive it this after you see the genius of the levels, though. Especially after the snake bite... It has another flaw, external to the game itself - for a game of this length (~4 hours tops, unless you really dig the time trials) its price point is way too high (I got it on offer). 8/10
Jade Empire
Refreshingly different to the usual Bioware RPG mould. All the core elements are there except the combat, but everything is pared down to its essence, and this elegance is carried over to a slick action combat system. It has flaws - some lazy port issues with the controls, a system which sometimes crosses from elegance to oversimplicity, and the plot is not as rich as some of their other titles - but still a game with a much defter touch than, say, Mass Effect.
Mass Effect
Well, now you mention it... I sunk about ten hours into it. Maybe less. At first it felt lovely and cinematic. Then the shitty AI and shitty UI and artifical difficulty and dull writing and bored voice acting cut in. Bleh. 4/10
Shatter
A revelatory update of arcade game Arkanoid (that's the one with the blocks and the paddle). You wouldn't have imagined there was this much scope, but Sidhe have polished it to a mirror shine. Pretty damned compelling. No real negatives to the game itself, only the fact its limited in its breadth. 7/10
Bionic Commando: Rearmed
Not the new one, the update of the arcade/NES game. Sidescrolling platforming centred around grappling hook acrobatics. Very slick, quite a lot of depth, with a range of weapons, enemies and powerups, hidden areas, challenge rooms and some nonlinearity. Difficulty is pretty high, as it was with all games of that era. Way more than a port, the updates to this game are marvellous. Also, it's quite pretty. 8/10
The Misadventures of P.B. Winterbottom
Temporal puzzle platformer which manages to have surprisingly little in common with Braid. Hampered a little by excessive cut-rate Suess humour and a lame attempt at Britishness. Still manages to be engaging at times. Meanwhile, all other aspects tick along nicely. The silent movie trappings, visual and auditory, are a treat. The gameplay is blended close to perfection, with the platforming element not totally subsumed by the puzzles. Puzzles, meanwhile, range from easy to moderately challenging, and the curve is well paced. Quite a lot of variations on the theme are thrown up, rather than relying too heavily on any one idea. Perhaps this has been taken too far - there is room for more levels with the existing mechanics. It is quite short; the main game is probably sub-three hours if you don't get stuck too much. Still, there's a healthy dollop of extra challenge levels which should add another one or two hours. At £3, that's a steal. 8/10
Puzzle Dimension
A subjective gravity/pathfinding puzzler. It's got a good chunk of levels, a good chunk of ideas, and a good difficulty curve. It doesn't do anything surprising or new, though. Just a good, solid puzzler. 7/10
The Dig
Still playing this one. It's a Lucasarts point and click game made my Spielberg. Not as good as the Indy ones, still good.
Aquaria
Underwater Metroidvania. The usual vocabulary of abilities is rendered irrelevant by movement in all four directions. Instead, a complement of special transformations and abilities is implemented off a pleasing musical system. Another highly polished indie game, and a fine example of the genre, I'm still playing this one.
Alien Swarm
Valve's new freebie is a mash up of Left 4 Dead and Space Hulk. The fun potential is high, and I'm eager to get some friends involved.
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