Just dreamed: the following phrase:

  • Reading time:1 mins read

“Government scientists developed a drug named Rygar” — conspiracy nut, about a supposed anti-errection product in the water supply.

Zombies, Love, and Closure

  • Reading time:3 mins read

The second series of Doctor Who has, to date, focused to an unusual degree on a loss of identity by outside influence. It’s been a central plot point in every story: the blood control in The Christmas Invasion, Cassandra’s shenanigans in New Earth, the Werewolf in Tooth and Claw, the children in School Reunion, the repair droids’ use of humans in The Girl in the Fireplace, the Wire’s victims in The Idiot’s Lantern, Toby and the Ood in The Satan Pit, the Abzorbaloff this Saturday — and then there’s all the Cyberman stuff. In each case the victims are robbed of a personality, such that their bodies might be used for other purposes — in most cases, to be physically transformed or integrated into something else.

Then there’s this lesser theme of people with obsessions abandoning them and “moving on”: The Rose with Doctor #9, Cassandra again, Sarah Jane, Mickey. The Doctor keeps half looking for excuses to give up wandering (in both Fireplace and Satan Pit) — or at least, he sure gives up quickly whenever it looks like he’s going to be stuck somewhere. To contrast, there are the characters who insist on clinging to the past — and we see what happens to them: Sarah Jane, who nearly wasted her entire life waiting for the Doctor to return; Reinette, who did. Then there are all the “Doctor Who fans” in Love & Monsters.

And yet there’s this temptation, this constant theme that maybe one can return to the past. That there’s some way to reclaim what you’ve lost: Cassandra and her business with Chip, Victoria and her paranormal mutterings, the Skasis Paradigm, this “before Time” business in The Satan Pit. Though she thought it was behind her, Rose still can’t get over her father and is drawn to his doppelganger. Part of the Doctor’s infatuation with Reinette was in how she managed to help him revisit his old, buried memories. And then there’s “Army of Ghosts”, coming up.

Of course, given that an identity is mostly built up out of memories… this all gets rather complex.

Especially in light of the huge new spoiler that will not be mentioned, I wonder how this all ties into the last couple of episodes. I doubt we’ll see any true conclusion in the next few episodes; these themes seem to be setting up something so huge that it’ll take most of series three to address.

The modern heart

  • Reading time:1 mins read

The driving force behind all “civilized” behavior is loneliness.

The Ends of the World

  • Reading time:27 mins read

by [name redacted]

Part one of my ongoing culture column; originally published by Next Generation, under the title “Culture: Games and Metaphor”.

For the last several months, this site and others have been nodding along to figures like Satoru Iwata explaining that everything you know is wrong; that everything you recognize as videogames is actually backward and childish, and making bold claims about what the future might hold for the medium. We’ve seen the “games as art” movement and “new games journalism”, and the backlash to both. It’s understandable enough; we’re human. We get attached to things; mere familiarity is enough to calm us down. Make the world a little less lonely.

Something I’ve not really seen addressed is, well, what’s wrong with videogames, anyway? The simple answer is that, in their current form, they’re pointless. Or, well. They’re not conducive to conveying a point, anyway.

I will gobble you up… pretty boy!

  • Reading time:2 mins read

Yeah, that was a pretty big improvement on The Unquiet Dead. I’m not sure why everyone got his and her face back at the end. There wasn’t even a line in there, that I heard, to justify it. (Why are their faces taken anyway? And how do they breathe? You just need a sentence!)

Sort of a weird episode, with the social commentary. Mix of nostalgic nationalism and commentary on the unfortunate social concepts of the time. The whole “faceless drone” thing as a result of television seems… pretty intentional. In a Twilight Zone sense. TV aerials looking like swastikas and all. Neither glorifying nor damning the period. Just.. noticing.

I think it’s intended that the kid might be gay, though it’s… not made clear, since I guess it’s not important.

The Father’s another sorta Roald Dahl adult.

The Tenth Doctor does have a sensitive tongue, doesn’t he.

Too bad they didn’t work in that Logopolis reference. It could have been shortened: “It’s nothing… I just have this thing about broadcast towers.” Then he shakes it off, and continues. It could have worked. Needn’t have been distracting.

I also thought it went by a little too quickly, much like — say — Tooth & Claw and The Christmas Invasion. It’s written to the format more well than last year’s, though. The tone and internal pacing, in particular, were much, much more well-composed. It’s a fun piece, with little except that weird plot point against it. Certainly better than most of the series two episodes, so far. I’m looking forward to the next Gatiss episode.

As for the production: as much as I love The Third Man, I find myself agreeing with some people that the camera here could have used a carpenter’s level in a few scenes. There are times to get all impressionistic; there are times when it’s just distracting. It’s a pretty minor quibble, though. Most of the artsiness was put to practical effect.

So. After Girl in the Fireplace and School Reunion, I’d say this is probably the strongest episode of series two. That says more about the other episodes this year than it does about Idiot’s Lantern. Still, there we are. The Twilight Zone factor and the handsome direction are the big plusses here.

This Week’s Releases (May 22-26, 2006)

  • Reading time:9 mins read

by [name redacted]

Episode forty-one of my ongoing, irreverent news column; originally posted at Next Generation

Game of the Week:

Steambot Chronicles
Irem/Atlus
PlayStation 2
Tuesday

You have likely read, if you like to read, of a game called Bumpy Trot; this site in particular, in the hands of Japan columnist William Rogers, has taken every possible opportunity to name-check the game – resulting in a blurb on the its Atlus USA site. Here’s where I remind you of its Western name – the Haruki Murakami-esque Steambot Chronicles – and mention that it really is nifty, for what it is. For a more elaborate description you can turn to NextGen’s “Ten Best Games in Japan” column for last year; for here, suffice that it’s sort of like a Zelda game done right, thrown into a post-GTA sandbox, and produced on a shoestring budget by a sincere bunch of underdogs who aren’t used to making this kind of game. So it’s a little wonky, and a little glitchy, and it doesn’t know what it’s not supposed to do, which results in as many weird decisions as inspired ones. It’s not really made for prime time, and yet it’s got so much heart and it’s got such good ideas that it’s got the workings for a real sleeper hit. Give it some hype and some word-of-mouth, and this game will surpass expectations.

Atlus has done a pretty good job on the localization; the voices are… solid enough, and the writing is appropriately stark. Though something tells me the game might have made more of an impression with its original Japanese name, the new one maybe fits the game a little better. This is only one of maybe a half-dozen impressive new acquisitions Atlus USA had to show at E3; if Atlus can just get the word out the way it did with Trauma Center, this could be one of the company’s best years yet.

we muzzzzzt surviiiive..

  • Reading time:1 mins read

Well, that was a decent end to a blah beginning. I like it that this episode was mostly visual: all action and framing and memorable scenes, in place of the lamentable dialog and plotting of last week. Everything seems to play to the strengths of the writer and director at hand. It could almost be a silent movie — which is appropriate, I figure, to a Cyberman episode.

By a similar stretch: I just realized why Tennant reminds me so of Troughton in this episode. Well, the writing and performance do a lot of it. Just a important, though, is the outfit: black suit, light shirt, bow tie. Versus Cybermen, of all things. So again, yeah — appropriate. Troughton performance. Almost a silent horror movie. Some imagery to rival Tomb. This half of the story is one of the few effective Cyberman appearances in the history of the series. Too bad the build-up was so boring.

Still not as captivating as the best of the new series. It’s solid, though. Classic, in mostly a good way — whereas last week was classic in mostly a bad one.

This Week’s Releases (May 15-19, 2006)

  • Reading time:5 mins read

by [name redacted]

Episode forty of my ongoing, irreverent news column; originally posted at Next Generation

Game of the Week:

New Super Mario Bros.
Nintendo
Nintendo DS
Monday

Out of all the pre-release devisiveness, in my experience New SMB takes the ribbon. Every time the game’s brought up, the Internet melts just a little. There’s no pleasing anybody! Maybe that has something to do with the game’s own conflicts: it wants to both revisit the style of Super Marios 1 and 3 for the NES and to “update” it with all the advances since Super Mario World. It wants to both play on nostalgia and to attract all the new and disillusioned eyes who have gravitated toward the DS. It wants to both be the successor to the Super Mario Bros. mantle and to come off as something altogether new.

So what we’ve got is a forward-pressing 2D platformer (as with the NES games) that calls upon the moves introduced in Super Mario 64 to help Mario more precisely explore a 3D world, flashy gimmicks introduced in Smash Bros. as a kind of a joke, and a whole lot of silly scripted events and mechanic-wanking intended to impress the pants off of anyone who thinks he knows how Super Mario Bros. works. And yet, it’s kind of fun. Maybe it’s a little too concerned with the past instead of with doing its own thing – and maybe it’s too concerned with making the past appealing to people who weren’t there at the time – yet maybe the gamers are a little too concerned about Mario.

In its overkill, its mix of old and new, the game clearly isn’t taking itself very seriously. The game gives off an air of exuberance; it knows it’s just screwing around, and it doesn’t care. Within those constraints, New SMB is pretty neat. The past has had its time; if you’re going to bring it up again, you’d better either take it somewhere new and inspirational or have shameless fun with what’s there. Ikaruga and Jonathan Blow’s Braid do the former; New SMB does the latter. Fair enough.

Girl in the Fireplace

  • Reading time:4 mins read

Well. That… certainly broke the template. There always was the potential to do something like this with the schow, and in forty-some years they never did. This is kind of like a revelation.

So this is what you can do with a time travel story.

It’s like… a Treasure game, the way it’s using the series concept. It’s like this is what the show’s format has been meant for all along, and it just hasn’t happened until now.

I like also how all the writers seem to be fighting to inject new, random bits of continuity and “mythology”. Christmas, you get the hand. Here, you get the Doctor turning his “mind meld” powers on a human. Then you get all the business about “Doctor” just being a title, like “Madame de Pompadour”, and it hiding something dark and secret.

We’ve been getting the “Doctor Who?” jokes since last March, and all through the new series the Doctor keeps dodging the question of who he is. This is the first time some real importance has been tied to the question, though. That the audience has been given the cue: “That’s a good point. Who is he, anyway? What’s his deal?” It all goes back to the beginning. One of the big, important unresolved issues that kind of got forgotten after 1969 or so.

Curious thing is, all through the ’80s and ’90s there was an attempt to bring the question back up again. John Nathan-Turner, the producer during the ’80s, addressed it by putting question marks all over the Doctor’s clothes. (“‘Doctor WHO’ — get it?!”) Then Andrew Cartmel, the script editor during the final couple of seasons, had this plan for suggesting that all we knew was wrong, and that the Doctor was way more than we’d ever imagined. That plan ended when the show ended, though the novels and stuff all through the ’90s took it in some seriously strange directions.

This isn’t clothes-deep, though. And it isn’t attempting to rewrite history. It’s just bringing attention back to the realization that we really don’t know who this guy is, outside of what we’ve witnessed. We don’t know what’s driving him or why. Though it seems we know a lot, it’s all just details. He’s a Time Lord. He’s been wandering for nine hundred years, basically on his own, separated from his own kind. Somewhere over the last couple hundred years, all the other Time Lords died out. Though to an extent it doesn’t make that much of a difference, as he was always alone anyway. At first he was hiding from his own kind; now he’s just… used to hiding. He even hides that he is hiding, with all of his adventures and attempts to do right by throwing himself in without a thought of caution, and the parade of assistants he’s enlisted. Then he always just moves on. Never bothers tidying up. Goes back into hiding, in his little box, outside the universe.

* * *

I think the best line — well, exchange — in this was between the Doctor and MdP:

“This is my lover, the King of France.”
“Yeah? Well, I’m the Lord of Time — and I’m here to fix the clock.”

Somehow, framing the story so you can also see him as sort of a fairy tale character from Madame de Pompadour’s perspective, and so you can see the weird logistics that fall into space then — well. Cripes.

I mean, it makes sense. For her and everyone there, he’s like a sprite or gnome, who keeps popping in and out of the world. And it just so happens that he’s the lord of time. So of course he’d be there to repair the clock. And of course the menace would be made of clockwork. That’s the only way it would make sense, his being there. And of course the only time he does appear is when the clockwork droids do — when the clock needs fixing. And of course they’re no real menace, because he’ll always be there, like the tooth fairy.

Somehow all that business is solidified in one brief exchange. He becomes a myth. A small, personal myth.

And in a sense, he’s not much more to us — even though he’s (effectively) been there through our whole lives. Forty-three years, actually. (Hmm.) On a practical level, he’s no less a mystery.

Moving On

  • Reading time:2 mins read

Another thing that annoyed me about Rose was that she thought she was the first person to travel with the Doctor and the only person on Earth to know about alien life. She didn’t even think to ask whether she was or not! Rose must really rate herself.

It’s just denial. She hasn’t thought about it, at least in part because she’s chosen not to. It hasn’t been brought up, and she’s seen no reason to go into it — probably because she knows what the answer will be. If she doesn’t ask, she can pretend all she likes. It’s a part of being infatuated.

She admits out loud that she knew somewhere in her mind that there had to be someone else before her; it just wasn’t important enough to bring up. What teed her off so much here was being confronted with the situation she’d been avoiding so long (even after the Doctor went into his history with “dancing”), and then the math that came as a result.

“So… okay, here’s your old Companion. That’s… interesting. Wait, though. Why haven’t you said anything about her? What does that say about her? What does that say about you? What does that say about me?”

Basically, she’s being forced to deal with issues she’s been putting off, hoping she’ll never be faced with. That’ll annoy anyone, as it forces you to completely change your head. To open up to imperfection, to compromise. It takes away all the luster. Once you do that, there’s no going back. All you’ve got is reality — which is exactly what Rose has been trying to escape, this whole time.

This is probably one of the first big seeds sown for her leaving the series. Once she manages to get past all of this, she’ll be in more of a position to appreciate all the other things in her life — Mickey, her mum, even the simple inanities of twenty-first century London.

This Fortnight’s Releases (May 1-12, 2006)

  • Reading time:8 mins read

by [name redacted]

Weeks thirty-eight-and-nine of my ongoing, irreverent news column; originally posted at Next Generation

Game of Early May:

SiN Episodes: Emergence – Episode 1
Ritual/Valve
PC
Tuesday

It’s kind of weird; back in mid-1998, everyone was waiting for SiN – then the very day it arrived, Half-Life sprang out of nowhere, and took all the attention. That didn’t stop SiN from becoming a cult hit; it’s just hard to escape such a poor case of timing. Over the past eight years, the game has built up a reputation as perhaps the pinnacle of the old “Duke Nukem“-style FPS, before Half-Life changed everything. Traditional genre fans, who just like to charge forward and shoot stuff, have been waiting a long time for a sequel – and here it comes, via the Half-Life 2 engine, via Steam, and via the episodic template that Valve has set out.

This first episode brings back all the major characters from the 1998 original, to do much the same business as before: run forward and shoot. The difference is in the method; aside from the obvious enhancements in physics and envionmental interaction allowed by the Source engine (and the consequences thereof), the game now automatically adjusts itself to the player’s skill level and playing tendencies. If you get good at head shots, apparently, enemies might start wearing helmets. According to Ritual, the game will take experts about as long as new players to play through.

Emergence, being only one of at least nine planned episodes, will only last about six to eight hours; on the other hand, it only costs about eighteen bucks. Something tells me this episodic download thing is going to take off. It’s almost like a revised take on the early-’90s Shareware scene. The difference with shareware was that people got a whole episode for free, then typically had to pay full price for another several episodes. Now you pay pocket cash up-front for each episode. Same thing; just reorganized for efficiency on both ends. Tie in Steam, and you’ve even got the return of online distribution. It’s obvious, in retrospect.

Now if only we’d come up with this ten years ago – if we’d just adapted and kept up with the Internet – just imagine where the PC development scene would be today.

Mercury Fluid Links

  • Reading time:2 mins read

It’s pretty clear how the Ninth Doctor had to die for his sins (speaking in a narrative sense) in order to be forgiven and reborn. Heck, primarily just to forgive himself by becoming a completely different person. The problem is, though the Ninth Doctor was a right bastard at times — careless even — he was guilty as hell about it, and the past effects of his arrogance. He just couldn’t help his behavior. He spent his whole “life” trying to compensate for it. Now the Tenth Doctor is a new man. He’s cast off that weight, and isn’t beating himself up anymore. He feels free to do whatever he wants. And that means pulling out all the stops the Ninth Doctor had on him — acting like he’s got a sort of a mandate, now that he’s been reborn. Yeehaw, nobody can stop me now! Top o’ the world! It’s like he hasn’t really learned at all. Nine hundred years of phone box travel, and he’s still a little boy.

That has to be set off somehow. He has to seriously grow, as a person. And it looks like that’s what Davies is doing, this series — especially with the “questioning beliefs” business in The Satan Pit and elsewhere, and being forced to confront Sarah Jane and other issues. It’s like a road lined with signposts saying “slow down; curve ahead”. And if he doesn’t heed them — well. He’ll learn sooner or later.

This Week’s Releases (Aug 24-28, 2006)

  • Reading time:8 mins read

by [name redacted]

Week thirty-seven of my ongoing, irreverent news column; originally posted at Next Generation

Game of the Week:

Guild Wars Factions
ArenaNet/NCsoft
PC
Friday

This is sort of an expansion, though it’s being sold as a standalone entity. Think of it as Phantasy Star Online version 2, for the Dreamcast. With Factions installed, you can access either the normal Guild Wars campaign or a new second campaign exclusive to this release. This second bit, which ArenaNet likes to describe as a completely separate game, has your new regions, skills, professions, and whatnot and a whole new feature set for guilds and multiplayer play.

Rose and Rose

  • Reading time:3 mins read

Yeah, this was pretty good. Certainly a leap up from New Earth, anyway. The tone and the pacing and some other ephemera aren’t really to my taste. As with The Chrismas Invasion, I’m not sure how fond I am of this “action movie” route the series has been taking. Not enough character development. Not enough exploration of concepts and themes. Not enough time for anything except Things Happening. Still, it’s all very well-done.

I think they missed an opportunity by making the solution mistletoe instead of frankincense. Torchwood House and all. Imagine if the walls actually had “torchwood” in them instaed of mistletoe oil.

Also, yeah. Billie’s running gag was annoying. I know it was supposed to be, to at least some extent. In context it didn’t come off as a bit clever, though; just flat-out flippant. That was distracting, and didn’t really fit her character. It’s one thing to be rude with some wit. This, though… well.

The actual end, with Vic’s speech, was also a little on the nose. The sub-ending was great, though: fine, here’s your reward — now get off my lawn before I call the cops.

I was far less annoyed by the cartoon wolf than I expected to be! Normally CG irritates me; this was used minimally and with enough taste that it pretty much worked. So good. And all the running plot stuff is kind of neat. Bad Wolf indeed. Was that just an in-joke, or does it mean something? What fun.

All in all, the episode hung together much better than it should have. It’s tied with twine; stll, it holds. Commendable stuff. And as a production, it’s pretty much perfect. Best direction so far, next to The Empty Child. Probably Davies’ cleanest script, one week after his messiest.

* * *

Other people have described the Silent Hill movie better than I could. The best part was the butched-up Cybil. The worst part is… well, everything after the white-out. Just, yikes. It’s too bad this didn’t really work in the end, as there are so many nice little things about it: the way the sirens are attached to the church (much as in a Junji Ito story I just localized), the way the transitions to and from the “dark world” were visualized. Johnny Cash. There was so much potential in the dual story with Rose and her husband. Then the movie never really did anything with any of this; instead it just took that left turn onto gore street. A darned shame.

This Week’s Releases (April 17-21, 2006)

  • Reading time:6 mins read

by [name redacted]

Week thirty-six of my ongoing, irreverent news column; originally posted at Next Generation

Game of the Week:

Brain Age: Train Your Brain in Minutes a Day
Nintendo
Nintendo DS
Monday

Times sure are a-changin’. Even given that this game is the biggest sleeper hit in perhaps all of Japanese history (or at least since Godzilla), I dare you to imagine it getting released over here even five years ago. No, wait; Seaman came out in 2000. Let’s say seven years ago, then.

Not so much a game as a utility for daily life and health, Brain Age is essentially a set of mental exercises – math, especially – that you’re meant to run through once a day to keep your brain limber. Even for math dumbos like me, it’s nothing hard or frustrating; that would go against the whole point. The idea is just to see how quickly and how well you process information – then to flex that, gently, over an extended period. The “younger” your brain is, by the game’s measurement, the further you are from senior onset dementia.

With a population aging as rapidly as Japan, you can see where the appeal lies. Over here, the trick is in unconventional marketing. Nintendo’s trying to play up how much fun the product’s quizzes are. They’re… kind of not, for their own sake. Sure, the overall package is charming as hell. It’s not really a videogame, though. Try to get it on Oprah, guys. That’s the real test.