This week’s re-watch: “That Which Survives,” famously underutilizing the beautiful Lee Meriwether as a rogue computer defense program. Like most of this season’s efforts, it has an intriguing premise that it entirely fails to deliver on.
The real news, however, is that this week Eugene and I will be launching Laugh Treks. We had talked last summer about ways to make the third season more palatable (not just to our readers but for ourselves!), and we kept falling back on our instincts: mockery. We had hoped to launch it with the beginning of the third season to coincidence with our review of “Spock’s Brain,” but do you guys have any idea how long these things take?!? I’ll talk about this more once it’s launched on Thursday, but this project is one of the most difficult things I’ve ever done. We’ve got a trailer up here if you want a taste of what’s to come. We really hope that people enjoy it and spread the word to their friends!
The outlook is bleak. This week’s episode was “The Mark of Gideon,” an improbably stupid examination of overpopulation. The only positive comment I could muster was a Settlers of Catan reference, so watch at your own risk.
I got a head-start on “That Which Survives,” and I’m starting to flounder. When the season opened we had “The Enterprise Incident” and “Is There In Truth No Beauty?” But it’s been months since then. Is there anything left to look forward to?
That’s the original title for “Let That Be Your Last Battlefield,” this week’s Star Trek Re-Watch over at The Viewscreen. I had been looking forward to this one since we started–I mean, is anything as iconic as the black-and-white cookie faces except maybe the Guardian of Forever?–but while I appreciated the attempt and generally enjoyed it, it just doesn’t impress. (Aside from Frank Gorshin, who should get a medal.) Eugene was bothered by the flimsy plot; I was bothered by some of the sociopolitical implications.
Last week was “Whom Gods Destroy,” which only a week later I can barely recall. I think that about sums it up…
The least exciting game of the holidays (and last I’ll blog about), I’m sorry to say, is Rock Band 3. It’s also the one I was looking forward to the most. Since I first learned of Guitar Hero I’ve been dying for Keyboard Hero. It’s the instrument that seemed the most obvious addition to the rock ensemble (I mean, does anyone enjoy the lengthy keyboard solo that opens “Baba O’Reilly,” when no one gets to play anything?), and the best suited to actually teaching you how to play a real instrument. But the keytar that comes with the game is clunky and awkward. Its keys are less responsive than they should be, and the game difficulty seems to jump from so-easy-you’re-falling-asleep to oh-my-god-death-by-music. The pro mode sounded great–in theory–but the reality is that you need either their expensive stratocaster guitar ($60) & bass replica ($100) or midi-compatible real-life instruments. This apartment has a (real) guitar, a (real) bass, and a full-size keyboard, and only the keyboard is midi-compatible. And even then you need to buy a $40 adapter. So I can’t learn anything with the real instruments in my apartment, and unless I buy the extra plastic instruments for $160 pro mode is completely inaccessible to me save for the drums (because I had already caved and bought the cymbal expansion a few years ago).
Ultimately, it’s the money factor that soured me on the game. Read more »
Fable III inspired the same sort of lukewarmly positive vibe as I felt for Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood. I enjoyed Fable II a lot–it didn’t try to break new ground or subvert its cliches. It was a fantasy RPG and it embraced that wholeheartedly. The quests were fun if straightforward, the plot was transparent but enjoyable, and the gameplay was intuitive and simple. It was, more than anything, fun. Not brilliant, not groundbreaking, but a plain old pleasure to play, and frankly that’s a welcome relief from the constant advertisements about X, Y, or Z game that’s going to change your life. Sometimes I just want a game that’s exactly what it says on the tin, and Fable II did that admirably.
Fable III, however, has decided to do things differently. There’s no XP, no HUD, and no health bar. Read more »
An effect of the holidays, I have three new games to toy around with, and coincidentally they all happen to be the third installments of their franchises.
First, there’s Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood, which I’ve poked around in but am not attached to. It’s a good, solid game, and it’s always nice to have more of the Ezio storyline, but it just doesn’t compare to AC2. The story is serviceable but unexceptional and combat is the same. The sim-like city improvements are mainly irritating here, as you have to shamble around trying to figure out what you’ve already purchased and what you haven’t. The hireling baby assassin gameplay is neat but not critical, and the multiplayer seems designed for the kind of internet jerks that love to kill n00bs in Halo (i.e. not me). It’s mostly the same game as AC2, which is pretty much what I was hoping for, but the less interesting storyline and already familiar characters leave something to be desired.
As much as I love Ezio, I’m ready for them to move on to other characters and places. My personal request: that they put Lucy in the animus. Rumored locales of future games range from thrilling (feudal Japan!) to completely uninspired (World War I). I have no interest in the game once guns are ubiquitous–there are enough shooters in the world already. But I guess there’s nothing to do but wait and see…
Wondering where the ’60s went? Just look at that screencap. This week’s Star Trek Re-Watch is “Elaan of Troyius,” a kind of cross between the Helen of Troy story and Antony and Cleopatra–only with skimpier outfits and even more chauvinism. Hoorah!
Assassin’s Creed 2 might be a perfect game.
It’s entirely not the kind of game I generally play. I prefer RPGs (mostly Japanese), and am just not very interested in combat-oriented games. Action-adventures like Batman: Arkham Asylum and Prince of Persia rely less on combat than they do on puzzle-solving and creative thinking, so they appeal to me in ways that, say, God of War or Devil May Cry don’t. But Assassin’s Creed 2 is special.
I watched the boyfriend play the first Assassin’s Creed game and while I loved the characters and the setting, the gameplay was too repetitive and the story too obvious and simple for my tastes. It was a fun game to watch someone else play but not compelling enough for me to pick up. When the sequel came out I expected the same, but I was wrong. Instead I fell in love. Read more »
In honor of Christmas Eve, I’m going to…catch up on all the things I need to catch up on! The Star Trek Re-Watch has passed “The Tholian Web,” which made absolutely no narrative sense to me, and “Plato’s Stepchildren,” which is just ghastly from beginning to end. I don’t know that I can ever watch that again, even in a fevered delirium with no other stimuli in sight.
Then there was “Wink of an Eye,” a solidly middle-of-the-bunch episode save for the irredeemably immoral ending. That said, I’d have rather watched it again than see “The Empath,” this week’s outing, in which big-headed sadistic aliens torture our heroes in order to drive a helpless empath to suicide. Can we just skip to the movies?
December has been an insanely busy month for me so I’m looking forward to relaxing a bit more in the new year. Happy holidays to all those that celebrate such things, and I hope the 2011 brings good things to all.
The Thanksgiving weekend has made me fall behind on so many things… Let’s see–there have been two new Star Trek Re-Watches over at The Viewscreen: “Day of the Dove” and “For the World is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky.” The former is kind of like an afterschool special (war is wrong!), while the latter has some gorgeous sets and a nice McCoy story but weak motivation and plotting. Coming up tomorrow: “The Tholian Web.”
The week leading up to Thanksgiving was Harry Potter-themed, incidentally. It was my sister’s sixteenth birthday and I promised to make her a cake. I enjoy making fun cakes so her request for a Harry Potter-themed one (white cake, strawberry icing–yay for parameters) had me in a tizzy1. A real challenge! I cycled through so many ideas–a Hogwarts crest? A caketopper of Neville and Nagini? But in the end, my fondant wound up too soft for a cake-topper, my experimental strawberry cake came out too dense and weird, and my food coloring was so shockingly pastel that at 10pm (after a full six hours of baking and decorating) I had to scrap the cake and start from scratch. The last thing I wanted was to give her a Cake Wreck. I was too ambitious. This time I used the fondant only for little decorations, and settled on the horcruxes as decorative elements around the HP logo. Can you identify them?2 Read more »
Uncategorized | Torie | 
January 31, 2011 12:00 pm | 
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