Monday, August 16, 2004
Is there an unwritten rule that says...
...all hot beverages must remain below eyeball height?
Because if there is, I've broken it. Not to worry though, because condoms have far more uses than you might expect. And to answer your unasked question, no, I don't spend much time thinking of these elaborate, cunning segues; they just come to me out of their own free will. Like this one:
Moving right along yet again, I went to see Aliens vs. Predator this weekend. Personally, I thought it was exactly the sort of movie that it shoud have been. There were a few things that I would have done differently had I been at the helm*, but there usually are when it comes to movies so saturated in... whatever it is that powers the average fanboy. It is to the credit of Paul Anderson that he can tap into that power source and use it to fuel a movie. The little touches like having Mr. Weyland tap between his fingers with his pen just serve to give the audience a reason to go "Oooooh, wow!" instead of "Hey, this movie isn't very good!" Because really, if you don't already know exactly what to expect before the lights dim, you probably won't like the movie. Therefore, those who will go see the movie will like it, and those who won't go, wouldn't be entertained anyways so it's all good. As movies that require no reviews go, this one was pretty decent.
* For completeness, I would have had the mousey, short-haired chick not die, had the pyramid in the middle of the freaking desert, since it's been established that Predators like the heat, (plus it means that instead of the oh-so-segsy parka and mittens outfits, we can have much-more-segsy tank top and shorts, like a proper summer movie should), and lastly, I would have tossed the opening strains of the Predator theme in somewhere, just because.
Doom 3, not-so-coincidentally, is very much like Aliens vs. Predator, in that I got to give it a go this weekend (played for the first 20 minutes or so of the game) and it has the whole "made for the people that will play it" thing. If you are going to buy the game, you already have and you probably liked it, (at least for a while) and if you weren't going to like it, you probably wouldn't pick it up in the first place. For myself, I think that Doom 3 is a cutting-the-bleeding-razor's-edge engine, with a thoroughly mediocre game encapsulating it. It is pretty obvious in my mind that it's been a while since anyone at Id has played the original Doom, since there was a nice tightrope act to perform in order to get the game right, and they fell after about two steps.
In my mind, Doom was all about extremes. The thing that made the game awesome was that every little element, from the weapons to the monsters to the level design, was all designed to swing you from the "fun" extreme, where you are an arsenal, mowing down monsters with aban- nay, wild abandon, and then within the single instant it takes to go from "ammo" to "no ammo", you get swung over to the "frightened" extreme. I don't think I need to elaborate on the details of what that means, other than the phrase "Can't move, zombies will get me" tends to sum it up quite nicely. Doom 3, unfortunately, doesn't do this very well. It seems to be all hung up on being frightening, and not enough on being fun. Why else would you make a game that bloody dark, and then not allow you to hold a flashlight and a gun at the same time? It could be that later on in the game, the balance is restored and all becomes well again, but I'm not optimistic on that one, mainly because of the shotgun.
The shotgun, you see, is the anti-zombie weapon. Just as the vampire has the stake, and the wolfman has silver bullets, the zombie has the shotgun. In Doom, not only was the shotgun the best tool for clearing a room of zombies in the early game, but it was your first weapon. Yes, you had the pistol, but while moderately effective against living targets, it has no stopping power. To take down zombies and demons, you need something that possesses Oomph. Something that doesn't so much hit the target, but slam into it like a pack of marauding, Ginsu-wielding cinder blocks. Something that could, with all honesty and sincerity, call itself a boomstick with a straight face and convince a roomful of others to do the same. The shotgun, gameplay-wise, should be able to take down anything the size of an average man in one hit, and then remain a viable weapon for the rest of the game, even after you get all the high explosives and rapid-fire machine-gunnery. In Doom 3, it has the right size, shape and rate of fire, but it had no power, no substance, and that was what really did it for me. To be armed with the shotgun, face down a zombie, fire point-blank into its chest and not kill it just sucked all the fun right out of the game. Yes, I do feel that strongly about my shotguns.
So to sum up, Doom 3 is very pretty (if dark) and shows nothing but pure, unbridled potential for the way games of the future will look, but if Id once knew how to make a good game, they have largely forgotten, and that's just a darn shame. Doom 3 goes through the motions, and if you had fond memories of the original, you just may like this new-fangled incarnation, (provided you don't get hung up on little things like the shotgun) but for me, I will move on to greener pastures.
See, I also rented Spider-man 2 this weekend for my Playstation 2, and it, in contrast, is fun. I think of it not so much as a Spider-man game, but as a web-swinging simulator that happens to have a fighting system and a plot that resembles the movie. If you ever wanted an idea of what web-swinging must be like, play this game. Other than the web-swinging, it's all pretty decent - the camera doesn't make you want to strangle it (often), the fighting system is pretty cool (if you've played previous Spider-man games, you know all about this), and the voice acting is better than average (Bruce Campbell reprises his role as the narrator that gives you, er, "helpful" tips). It's no Prince of Persia, but it's definitely worth a rental or two.
Speaking of Prince of Persia though, I was playing this one as well over the weekend (yeah, it was a very videogamey weekend) and yes, it's just as awesome as ever. If you haven't played this game in its entirety yet, don't wait any longer. It's available on all three consoles and on the PC, so if you're reading this, you shouldn't have an excuse. It's relatively short, so you could conceivably finish in a 3-night rental, and definitely finish it in a week-long one. Penny Arcade gave it the "Best Absolutely Everything" award for last year in the We're Right Awards, and it deserves it so much. There's a sequel coming out in November by the same team, and believe me, November won't get here soon enough.
Did I do anything this weekend other than watch movies and play video games? Well, there was a nice game of Diplomacy tossed in on Sunday, but otherwise, not really. Then again, did you expect anything else?
¶ 9:15 a.m.
...all hot beverages must remain below eyeball height?
Because if there is, I've broken it. Not to worry though, because condoms have far more uses than you might expect. And to answer your unasked question, no, I don't spend much time thinking of these elaborate, cunning segues; they just come to me out of their own free will. Like this one:
Moving right along yet again, I went to see Aliens vs. Predator this weekend. Personally, I thought it was exactly the sort of movie that it shoud have been. There were a few things that I would have done differently had I been at the helm*, but there usually are when it comes to movies so saturated in... whatever it is that powers the average fanboy. It is to the credit of Paul Anderson that he can tap into that power source and use it to fuel a movie. The little touches like having Mr. Weyland tap between his fingers with his pen just serve to give the audience a reason to go "Oooooh, wow!" instead of "Hey, this movie isn't very good!" Because really, if you don't already know exactly what to expect before the lights dim, you probably won't like the movie. Therefore, those who will go see the movie will like it, and those who won't go, wouldn't be entertained anyways so it's all good. As movies that require no reviews go, this one was pretty decent.
* For completeness, I would have had the mousey, short-haired chick not die, had the pyramid in the middle of the freaking desert, since it's been established that Predators like the heat, (plus it means that instead of the oh-so-segsy parka and mittens outfits, we can have much-more-segsy tank top and shorts, like a proper summer movie should), and lastly, I would have tossed the opening strains of the Predator theme in somewhere, just because.
Doom 3, not-so-coincidentally, is very much like Aliens vs. Predator, in that I got to give it a go this weekend (played for the first 20 minutes or so of the game) and it has the whole "made for the people that will play it" thing. If you are going to buy the game, you already have and you probably liked it, (at least for a while) and if you weren't going to like it, you probably wouldn't pick it up in the first place. For myself, I think that Doom 3 is a cutting-the-bleeding-razor's-edge engine, with a thoroughly mediocre game encapsulating it. It is pretty obvious in my mind that it's been a while since anyone at Id has played the original Doom, since there was a nice tightrope act to perform in order to get the game right, and they fell after about two steps.
In my mind, Doom was all about extremes. The thing that made the game awesome was that every little element, from the weapons to the monsters to the level design, was all designed to swing you from the "fun" extreme, where you are an arsenal, mowing down monsters with aban- nay, wild abandon, and then within the single instant it takes to go from "ammo" to "no ammo", you get swung over to the "frightened" extreme. I don't think I need to elaborate on the details of what that means, other than the phrase "Can't move, zombies will get me" tends to sum it up quite nicely. Doom 3, unfortunately, doesn't do this very well. It seems to be all hung up on being frightening, and not enough on being fun. Why else would you make a game that bloody dark, and then not allow you to hold a flashlight and a gun at the same time? It could be that later on in the game, the balance is restored and all becomes well again, but I'm not optimistic on that one, mainly because of the shotgun.
The shotgun, you see, is the anti-zombie weapon. Just as the vampire has the stake, and the wolfman has silver bullets, the zombie has the shotgun. In Doom, not only was the shotgun the best tool for clearing a room of zombies in the early game, but it was your first weapon. Yes, you had the pistol, but while moderately effective against living targets, it has no stopping power. To take down zombies and demons, you need something that possesses Oomph. Something that doesn't so much hit the target, but slam into it like a pack of marauding, Ginsu-wielding cinder blocks. Something that could, with all honesty and sincerity, call itself a boomstick with a straight face and convince a roomful of others to do the same. The shotgun, gameplay-wise, should be able to take down anything the size of an average man in one hit, and then remain a viable weapon for the rest of the game, even after you get all the high explosives and rapid-fire machine-gunnery. In Doom 3, it has the right size, shape and rate of fire, but it had no power, no substance, and that was what really did it for me. To be armed with the shotgun, face down a zombie, fire point-blank into its chest and not kill it just sucked all the fun right out of the game. Yes, I do feel that strongly about my shotguns.
So to sum up, Doom 3 is very pretty (if dark) and shows nothing but pure, unbridled potential for the way games of the future will look, but if Id once knew how to make a good game, they have largely forgotten, and that's just a darn shame. Doom 3 goes through the motions, and if you had fond memories of the original, you just may like this new-fangled incarnation, (provided you don't get hung up on little things like the shotgun) but for me, I will move on to greener pastures.
See, I also rented Spider-man 2 this weekend for my Playstation 2, and it, in contrast, is fun. I think of it not so much as a Spider-man game, but as a web-swinging simulator that happens to have a fighting system and a plot that resembles the movie. If you ever wanted an idea of what web-swinging must be like, play this game. Other than the web-swinging, it's all pretty decent - the camera doesn't make you want to strangle it (often), the fighting system is pretty cool (if you've played previous Spider-man games, you know all about this), and the voice acting is better than average (Bruce Campbell reprises his role as the narrator that gives you, er, "helpful" tips). It's no Prince of Persia, but it's definitely worth a rental or two.
Speaking of Prince of Persia though, I was playing this one as well over the weekend (yeah, it was a very videogamey weekend) and yes, it's just as awesome as ever. If you haven't played this game in its entirety yet, don't wait any longer. It's available on all three consoles and on the PC, so if you're reading this, you shouldn't have an excuse. It's relatively short, so you could conceivably finish in a 3-night rental, and definitely finish it in a week-long one. Penny Arcade gave it the "Best Absolutely Everything" award for last year in the We're Right Awards, and it deserves it so much. There's a sequel coming out in November by the same team, and believe me, November won't get here soon enough.
Did I do anything this weekend other than watch movies and play video games? Well, there was a nice game of Diplomacy tossed in on Sunday, but otherwise, not really. Then again, did you expect anything else?
¶ 9:15 a.m.
