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What’s Cool and Not For TV

May 212013

Looks like another Geek Filled TV season coming up. But let’s face it some of this stuff doesn’t looks so hot.

Agents of SHIELD: Unless you’ve been under rock, you’ve probably heard. Let’s hope the network gives Joss Wheadon the freedom to make this cool.

Almost Human: A little Blade Runner and Robocop vibe going here and JJ Anbrams. This looks like it could be awesome too. That one is going on the list.

Dracula: I had a hard time staying awake during the trailer. But another retelling of the classic Vampire tale stretched out into a TV series. Yipee. More vampires. I doubt they’ll do anything really thrilling with this. Yawn.

Under the Dome: Hey, we’re back on the let’s make another Lost. I predict train wreckage, again.

Blacklist: Hey, let’s make a Silence of the Lambs clone. Ugh again.

Trying to like Defiance

Fanboy, TV & Movies No Responses »

May 202013

At least I had the time to watch a couple more episodes of Defiance this week. Still not loving it.
I was so excited when this series was announced. It had some real potential based on the creative team and the concept but it just keeps falling flat. I don’t give damn about any of the characters. The dialog is just bland. And I can’t help but feel like I’ve seen this all before but done better. I can’t even think of one quotable moment or scene when I thought, “Man, this is cool.”
This morning the idea hit me. The show feels like it’s being written by the Marketing Department. So what’ hot now? Angsty teen romance! Let’s throw that in. Hey,those Firefly fans are really loyal. Let’s make it Sci-Fi Western. We need a prostitute with a heart of gold. Check. Let’s throw in a little political maneuvering. People like that stuff. We need a conspiracy/mystery that we can drag out over a season or more. Oh yeah and give us some shit that we can throw into a first person shooter.
Dammit, they have all the pieces to make a rocking show but it’s like they’re tied to tropes and don’t want for a moment to throw in something really interesting. I’ll give it a few more episodes, heck, maybe I’ll even finish out the first season. They need to really liven things up if they want to hold any interest.

Another D&D Movie. So what other games would make good movies?

Fanboy, RPG, TV & Movies 3 Responses »

May 132013

Yes, I know old news. But hell, real life has kept way too busy. Anyway, on with the rant.
By now, you probably have already heard about Warner Brothers saying they want to do a big budget D&D movie but then Universal coming back and saying that they own the rights. Hollywood doesn’t have that good of a track record for converting games (both table top and video) to the big screen. Heck, I can think of only two that were decent. Resident Evil and Clue. The rest were pretty damned bad. Dare I even mention the unholy name of Uwe Boll.
So this got me thinking (again) about what table top games could make good movies. My little brain came up with three, good and bad.

Rifts by Micheal Bay. Big fucking robots. Explosions. Mega Damage Explosions. Come on. You might want to see this when you were drunk off your ass.

Paranoia by Simon Pegg or even maybe Mike Judge I know I’d pay to that one and probably buy the DVD.

Over the Edge by Guillermo del Toro or David Lynch Once again, this would be strange but way cool.
So let’s discuss what other table games deserve a good movie treatment.

Ray Harryhausen: Thank you for bringing imagination to life

Fanboy, Rants, RPG No Responses »

May 072013

I have so much that I owe Ray Harryhausen. In my younger days, I got my hands on on old Super 8 movie camera and tried my own hand at stop motion animation. But more than anything he brought the creatures of myth and legend to life. His work was a true art form taking infinite patience. For those many hours of entertain, I am grateful.
As a young gamer, he brought the adventures that only were in my imagination to life in brilliant color. These were tales of heroes and monsters. Thank you, Ray.
And here’s one of my own favorite iconic scenes. The skeleton fight.

Neverwinter First Thoughts

Electronic Gaming, Fanboy, Reviews, RPG No Responses »

May 012013

After sitting in the queue for about an hour and half I finally got on and rolled up a Tiefling Trickster Rogue. No biggie. First day of a free MMO that has an impressive IP attached to it.
For us old grognard table top types, yep, it’s inspired by 4th Edition. You’ve got the usual races and classes and their expected abilities. No real surprise there. But it’s still an MMO so don’t expect that table top feel. There was one thing that did feel a bit like table top. That was generating your ability scores. Heck, there even was the sound of dice clattering. But I think the system was bascially roll until you get the numbers you like.
As far as being an MMO, maybe Guild Wars 2 has spoiled me. Neverwinter has the same old NPC’s with with an ! or ? over their heads. And so far seems like pretty much the same old type of quest lines. At least I haven’t gotten the “gather 12 wolf pelts” type quests, yet. I managed to make it to 6th level last night for whatever that’s worth. I really find the “you only heal at a campfire” mechanic a real drag. It’s either gulp down healing potions or back track.
The graphics aren’t anything really special. I’ve seen better and I’ve seen worse. The character customization during generation really doesn’t seem to help that much or make that much difference. The characters still look basically the same. It looks like hair and skin tone are the only things that are really noticeable once you get into the world and start playing.
But the UI, well, that’s something else. It might have been just my display but the icons were really tiny. And the controls. The usual keyboard keys for movement and various hot keys for your abilities. The left and right mouse buttons are for your At-Will powers. The mouse controls mainly the camera but you can also steer your character with it. It took me quite a while to get used to that. I spent a lot of time looking at the sky in the middle of a fight.
I didn’t have a chance to mess with it but I think the real strength of Neverwinter is going to come from The Foundry. This is user created content. Dungeons, quests, cities and so on. I haven’t a chance to really mess with it or go through any adventures but like I said, this is what I think will make Neverwinter really cool. Probably, it will be only a matter of days before someone does their iteration of Keep on the Borderlands or Tomb of Horrors.
So there’s a few things that I’m not crazy about but you can’t beat the price. Free. Now there are some in game micro-transaction but Cryptic says that you don’t need to pay “to win”. We’ll see about that. In the little gamer’s opinion, it’s worth the time to play around with and have some fun.