Richard's Online Journal
[19/08/08] In The Name Of The King
Ah, Uwe Boll. Much like American McGee, his name has become a warning label rather than a selling point, but that’s not about to get in his way.
I’d be lying if I said I had a soft spot for his terrible game-to-movie conversions. Most of the time, they’re intensely boring, regardless of who or what is on screen. Boll has an utter contempt for his source material that’s only matched by the disdain the fan community has of him. They’re not-so-bad-they’re-good. They’re the movie equivalent of the toy in a McDonalds Happy Meal - rushed, cheaply made crap designed to cash in while the iron’s hot. Watch another one? Sure! Sounds awesome…
But first, the obvious question. With a terrible director, an awful license, a pitiful story, a lousy script, and the weight of crappy tradition on its side, just how long can In The Name Of The King go before losing any hope of credibility? Projectionist, if you please…
Goodness me, a new record. But the horror has only just begun…
[18/08/08] Last Moment of Social Pleasure
The following is an actual memorial from Bath Abbey. Not the greatest picture quality in the world, but I only saw it at the last second and had to quickfire. I don’t know who the hapless subject is, but I hope there’s a statue to the person who wrote this somewhere. Possibly a shrine…
Our father, who art somewhere, probably…
I love how every line of this is a back-handed tribute. It’s not only the wonderfully vague ‘Moment of Social Pleasure’, which probably just means ‘got pissed’, but throws up so many other possibilities. It’s the suggestion of “Hopefully he’s in Heaven, but, eh, y’know...” and the final slap of calling it a Humble Tablet. Yes, it may have been a friend writing a memorial for someone with a sense of humour, but I like to think of an angry stonemason, seething at having been emotionally blackmailed into stumping up money to commemorate the Village Git. (Respect for the dead? I’ve heard of it...)
Cheery last line too. Makes you think… cheer up!
Bath Abbey has a few of these unusual photo-spots. Most of the time, it’s your standard religious iconography, but a lot of them really amuse me. Take this apathetic angel for instance. You can almost hear the ringing of the sculptor’s ears after he was told to lose the half-smoked fag and Starbucks mug.
“What? It’s my coffee break.
Still, it’s all very pretty. For some reason, despite having been in Bath for over 8 years now, I’ve never gotten around to heading up to the top of the Abbey to see the place from the highest point. Despite the rain and the wind, today seemed like the time to do it. A hundred of the 200-odd steps up to the top, I started to rethink this - especially at the realisation that who goes up, must come down. If the Abbey really wants to boost its visitors, two words: Helter Skelter. Kids would love it.
I don’t know how much it costs to bribe the staff into letting you spin the wheels of the clock round at mad speed while shouting ‘THE END OF THE WORLD IS NIGH!’ to the terrified parishioners staring up in horror from street level, but it’s more than £5.32. I asked.
Illusion of good weather kindly supplied by Photoshop
Other images up on Flickr, hidden amongst the 95,321,654 World of Warcraft screenshots. Note to self, must redress that balance…
[12/08/08] Strong Bad’s Yadda Yadda
I like Telltale Games a lot, don’t get me wrong, but goodness, they pick some nightmare licenses. With Bone, they tried retelling a story that roughly 90% of people who’d ever heard of Bone already knew backwards and anyone else could read up on between delayed episodes. Sam and Max went up against not only the original Lucasarts game, but peoples’ rose-tinted memories of it. Wallace and Gromit? Okay, that’s an exception. Can’t be any worse than the platform game. Brr. Silliness.
What are they going to take on next? Lego The Bible? Bacon: The Game? Oooh! That long-awaited episodic Planescape / Day of the Tentacle / System Shock crossover?
As far as I know, they’ve not ruled it out. That means there is Hope.
I wonder if there’s an alternate universe where Homestar Runner remained the star of his own cartoon? Hope not.
With Strong Bad’s Awesome Game For Cool People, they’ve done it again. For all the simple graphics and effortless humour of the website, this is a pretty challenging license. As such, what really interested me while playing through my review copy wasn’t how well it played - and it plays just fine, in case you’re wondering - but how it handled some of the pretty unique challenges in converting the free online shorts into a standalone commercial gig. With the assumption that you find the H*R crowd entertaining in the first place firmly in mind - you’re obviously not going to get much out of this one if you don’t - let’s take a closer look at what I mean…
Or not. Your call, really.
[30/07/08] Whydescreen
After a couple of evenings playing Alone in the Dark, I can safely say that nobody, anywhere, needs to spend a couple of evenings playing Alone in the Dark. It’s a terrible, terrible game, and the only reason I blink in surprise to hear people call it ‘controversial’ is that I don’t know a single person who doesn’t think it completely sucks. Deservedly. Capsule review: The stuff it does well is the worst, since in a good game, it could have been cool. In this, it’s insult meeting injury, with a side order of crap controls, terrible plotting, and insane design decisions.
Given how much stuff there is to complain about, it may seem odd that the one that really annoyed the hell out of me was the widescreen viewport. I don’t own a widescreen monitor, which meant staring at the whole crappy game through a letterbox, rather than enjoying it in letterbox format. I don’t get why this had to be the case. Were they worried a boom mike would dip into shot or something? Would filling the whole screen have sapped the cinematic ambience of people swearing and waiting for the inevitable tentacle monsters to show up?
Grr. Still, at least no bright spark has come up with the idea of using those of us shamefully not equipped with the same gear as their QA department for an exercise in stealth marketing. What kind of world would it be when almost half the screen is taken up with nothing more than high-resolution bugger all?
Not the world of advertising, that’s for sure. Wait. Aaah. I’m… I’m having a vision…
Brrr. I just hope I haven’t put ideas into anyone’s head…
[24/07/08] The Dark Knight
Well, s’alright and everything, but it’s no Darkman III…