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Guess Who’s Coming for Dinner

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So our copy of Arrival finally came in to the library over the weekend. This was actually one of the few movies this year I was excited to see. Unfortunately, circumstance saw that I wasn’t around when it passed through theatres so I was left waiting for rentals before I could enjoy it.

And there is something for the theatre experience. I had always dismissed people’s preference for the cinema as being delusional. However, whether it was through a worn disk or ailing DVD player, the audio quality was a bit lacking. We missed a good five minutes of the film trying to get a functional volume that didn’t burst our eardrums anytime an aircraft entered the scene (which is quite frequent) but still allowed us to hear the dialogue.

Granted, no one wants to read a review of someone complaining about their substandard view conditions. Or, maybe they do. I don’t know, I haven’t polled anyone about it. I’m assuming they don’t so I’ll just leave off with going to the cinema is definitely better even if it is crazy more expensive. But I’m not here to review Arrival either. At least, not really. Since I’m so late to this discussion, just throwing my opinions on the matter is probably redundant by now.

So I’ll just give a broad strokes review: I enjoyed it. I didn’t enjoy the time paradox. That’s not how language actually works. Conceit is better than Interstellar’s magic space library.

That should summarize the salient points.

No, there’s a different aspect of Arrival that I really want to discuss.

Awhile ago I wrote a little piece on racism in fantasy. It wasn’t my best argued piece, largely because it was just for the blog and beyond getting a first draft up, I wasn’t going to wed myself to the argument to tighten it further. Suffice to say, it’s a very common pitfall for creators to lean heavily on historical or cultural precepts when making new fantasy and science fiction races. This can, inadvertently, introduce biases, prejudices or stereotypes that were unintended. This can lead to a very flat depiction of a fantasy race wherein all members behave and act as one concept thus reinforcing preconceived notions that “all people are like X.” Wherein X is the original inspiration for the race but oftentimes is a rather unflattering depiction of a real world culture.

For a very simple shorthand, take a look at the modern depiction of elves. What do you imagine? Isn’t it a drunk, hairy midget who speaks like a Scotsman? I’d would be shocked if it was this:

Accessed from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alv%C3%ADssm%C3%A1l#/media/File:All-wise_answers_Thor.jpg

Thor converses with the dwarf Alviss by W. G. Collingwood.

Here we have the potato-headed Alviss coming to Thor to claim his daughter as his wife. Thor, conversing with the dwarf, argues he was made unaware of such an arrangement and will hand his daughter over if the dwarf is able to answer his questions. The dwarf is exhaustive in his reply, speaking with Thor until the morning sun rises and turns him to stone.

Sound familiar? It’s the concept Tolkien used in the Hobbit for defeating the trolls. Tolkien pulled heavily on older mythology and the Poetic Edda in particular for crafting his world. He laid the groundwork for most of our modern tropes.

But outside of being short, Alviss is hardly what you’d first imagine for a dwarf. Not to mention that Tolkien did exhaustive work to present his races in as rounded a manner as he could. I have little beef with Tolkien’s representation outside of it simply being copied ad infinitum since its creation. Hell, the Hobbit had so many dwarves in it that it would be hard to draw a single stereotype of them since they were presented with such a wide spectrum of behaviour.

Anyway, I don’t want to rehash the old argument because my driving point was that the issue with modern races is that instead of shooting for Tolkien’s creativity and diversity, we were getting endless derivatives that were reducing these concepts down to shallow stereotypes. Why not have new species and races that are formed and expanded beyond simple conceits and are informed by their own culture, biology and history into something wholly new, different and challenging?

Thus, we come full circle to Arrival.

Arrival is everything I want in a fantastical race. Not only are the aliens weird but their weirdness is a pivotal crux to the philosophy and themes in the piece. It’s the driving portion of the conflict and it’s really well done.

Needless to say, I’m going into spoiler territory so if you care… why are you reading one of my reviews again?

Anyway, Arrival does a fantastic job of enveloping its audience in confusion and uncertainty. Partly this is the editing and format through which the movie is presented. Sequences are played out of chronological order but, seemingly, in a benign way. I don’t wish to spend too much time discussing the nonlinear time elements. I hate time paradoxes and, sadly, Arrival introduces them with almost maniacal glee at the climax of its action which, instead of being the highlight for me, was the film’s lowest point. I’ve actually studied language and perception so the idea that thinking in the alien’s language suddenly grants super powers is a bit lame. I was willing to accept the conceit – I mean, you always have to accept some outlandish components of genre pieces – but that Amy Adam’s magic powers came even before she fully learned the language meant that their own explanation wasn’t internally consistent in the piece.

Regardless, I don’t want to discuss that. The whole circular time element is only good for its visualization within the written language of the cephalopods. Which ties back to my whole argument of designing alien cultures that are incredibly alien to what we know.

And everything about the cephalopods is meant to be alienating. It feeds into the overall disorientation of the piece and it’s done with such expertise that I couldn’t help but fall in love. I mean, the first appearance of the alien’s vessel – their black kidney bean shaped structure passingly reminiscent of the monolith from 2001: A Space Odyssey – is probably the most underwhelming aspect of the film. The smooth black curved contours were likely meant to reveal as little as possible for what was to come next and, potentially, lull the audience into a brief sense of respite.

If that is the case, then it does a good job since the first meeting with the aliens is pretty nerve-wracking. I absolutely loved how Arrival puts you on edge even though most of the film is, essentially, going through the daily drudgery of what would occur should we actually make first contact with an alien species. That is it say, it’s focused almost entirely on diplomatic efforts with a high priority placed on creating a line of communication than adhering to any action beats. In fact, the only action beat in the whole film seems really out of place.

However, there’s nothing more delightfully unsettling than that first scene where they board the cephalopod ship and enter the partitioned room. Watching the glass fill with gas as two dark shapes drift down  to hover like enormous disembodied hands before the minuscule contact team and their small, caged budgie is sheer visual brilliance.

And, ultimately, we don’t get to see much into the cephalopod culture over the course of the movie. There’s some excellent visual flair in rendering the language as some sort of mutable ink pattern, whose beginning and ending is so indecipherable that their program for creating responses has to present the cobbled lexicon together in multiple configurations during the course of a conversation. But even as we start to understand what little we can between the interactions of the lead characters and the alien visitors (including humanizing them by giving the two characters names of famous comedians), the movie throws us further off kilter when Amy Adam’s is brought aboard their vessel without the standard protective bio-suits near the film’s culmination.

Arrival and all associated images belong to Denise Villeneuve and Paramount Pictures.

We get a peek behind the curtain and we discover things are even weirder than the little we’d grown accustomed. The ground of the alien’s craft is actually some peculiar white ridged surface that looks more like frozen soundwaves. We’re introduced to an even more monstrous cephalopod that looks stranger than the other two we’ve met and the film itself takes on a grainy, dream-like quality for the exchange. Then, Amy Adams is dropped off and, instead of the ships taking to the sky, they just sort of roll over and vanish in a cloud of disembodied smoke.

It’s such a well conceived depiction of an alien that shares nothing in common with humans and I simply love how their own baffling biology is considered from their culture (language) to their technology (ship propulsion). Even better, you never actually see any terminals or anything in the ship since the aliens don’t have any appendages remotely similar to hands.

It is this kind of detail and consideration that makes you intrigued and wanting to learn more. It also works well for convening the mood and atmosphere of the story. Arrival addresses all my standard criticisms and I wholly recommend it for such an outstanding presentation of the power of science fiction imagining and just how it can be used to promote atmosphere and philosophy without falling back on tired and tried tropes and stereotypes.

Unless, of course, we want to argue that they were Lovecraftian horrors. But given the overall lack of destruction of Earth, I’m willing to let the antediluvian pelagic references to slid this time.

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The Most Dangerous Game

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We’re going to do something a little differently today. Normally I shy away from talking politics on the blog. People (presumably) come here for entertainment so I try and keep things focused more on that than the nitty, gritty world out there.

But things change and sometimes you just have to type some words about it.

2016 was a year of many things. We saw some rather… unexpected outcomes across the world. Some were jubilant. Others were anxious. At the very least, a number of people and countries were hurtling towards uncertainty. Because at least that would be a fun change from what we normally have.

Up here in chilly Canada, we’d been warming up to our newly elected Prime Minister. Justin Trudeau has been, essentially, everything that Stephen Harper was not. He was young. He didn’t have hair plucked from a Lego man. He led the red party and not the blue. Even more amusing, and after a number of teeth grinding years beneath Harper’s Conservatives, he was the spawn of the more polarizing politician Pierre Trudeau. I wasn’t around for Papa Trudeau’s tenure but I have family who were and, suffice to say, they weren’t big fans.

But Justin was saying all the right things and playing all the right notes so that people were generally willing to overlook this admittedly irrelevant quality. There’s no point in tarring the son for the actions of the father, as they say. I think they say that. I also wasn’t around for the age of tarring people.

I’ll go out and say it though, while many in Canada and the rest of the world were swooned by Justin’s flowing locks, I was hesitant. While I considered him a step up from the prior administration, his handling of Bill C-51 was, at best, amateur. I don’t expect many people to be aware of this bill, least of all most Canadians, but it was our northern version of the far more discussed Patriot Act that implemented a number of concerning powers to overstep citizen’s privacy in the name of federal security. Bustling little Trudeau vowed to address the more sticky parts of the bill should he be elected (holding the bill hostage, I suppose) while the rest of the minority parties outright argued against its disingenuous and dangerous precedence.

Well, news flash, here we are two years later and there’s still no peep from wittle Justin and his lovable band of diverse misfits over addressing the tightening of state power over citizens’ lives. A broken campaign promise? From a politician? Why I never.

I suppose it could be still in the works and Justin just hasn’t gotten around to it. He has been pretty busy with his townhall meetings across the country, don’t you know.

But I get it. Politicians lie. They just want your vote and they just want power. We can’t really trust them after all. But be sure to show up to the ballot box to make the one you’ve arbitrarily chosen like your sports team so that those even worse lying other guys don’t get to take the government and invariably implement what they promise to do on the campaign trail.

Because, as it turns out – and quite contrary to Liberal apologists – most politicians actually make honest efforts to implement their platforms. A Rutgers study in America by Gerald Pomper found that between 1944 and 1976, winning candidate’s implemented two-thirds of their platform. What doesn’t pass is usually due to obstruction by other representatives and not due to the candidate blithely pitching their words away before the eyes of a cynical public. Hell, even President Obama managed to address seventy percent of his 2008 and 2012 campaign promises and he faced six years of hard Republican obstructionism in congress (which accounts for twenty-two percent of his broken promises).

This scepticism of campaign policy is not only unfounded but can be rather dangerous when people elect politicians on the basis that they don’t believe said politician will deliver on their words but pursue some fantasy platform held only in that voter’s own mind.

Thus, we shouldn’t shrug our shoulders in acceptance when a politician does brazenly, boldly and bald-facedly break a key plank in the platform.

Hello, Justin. Please tell me again how 2015 would be the last election in Canada under the First Past the Post system.

You see, the Liberal Party of Canada spent quite a bit of air time telling us  how they were going to push through electoral reform if they were to gain power. I mean, they kind of had to since both the NDP and Green party were banging that drum pretty hard and let’s be honest – the Liberals are not ever going to win an election unless they can somehow convince NDP and Green voters to begrudgingly give up parties they actually support to hold their nose for the Liberals at the ballot box.

You see, it wasn’t that Justin Trudeau walked on stage in glitter and beneath spotlights wooing the Canadian public. He won the election because, quite frankly, there was a massive grassroots effort to replace Stephen Harper with someone – anyone – and people would work together to see that goal realized. I think the Liberals walked away from their majority win (on 38% of the vote) with this delusion that they had somehow converted the majority (well, barely a third of voters) to their side.

Thus, nearly out the gate, the Liberal government has been trying to kill electoral reform. I’m not going to repeat the sad display they’ve put on over this. I will repeat the highlights, however:

Accessed from https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sir_Robert_Peel,_2nd_Bt_by_Henry_William_Pickersgill.jpg. It is available, by Wikicommons statement to be in the public domain.

I’d rather not post a picture of your smarmy face, Justin. Here, let’s put up Sir Robert Peel. You know, the man that let the Irish starve to death so the government could cynically steal their land instead.

“We don’t have a mandate despite you voting for us being a good enough mandate to enact all our other policies. So we’ll put together a consultation committee to see what people want.”

“Oh shit, why do you want Proportional Representation? Wait, this is a recurring conclusion founded by all parties, too? It’s only our party representation that’s now arguing we should take some time after the next election to implement it instead of putting it forward now? You know what, we just simply haven’t heard from enough people.”

“Why do people keep bringing up our own committee’s recommendation for electoral reform. Look at this equation they used to measure the accuracy of election results to the vote totals. That’s math! Math is too hard!”

“Look, we’ll put out the world’s most misleading and disingenuous survey to get people to finally admit that they secretly want Ranked Ballot and not Proportional Representation.”

“Oh shit, that didn’t work. Fuck it. You’re not getting reform.”

Kristy Kirkup at the Huffington Post wrote a great summary for this about face from our inglorious leader on why he was turning his back on his promise. Now was not the time for such reform. He feels its not within Canadian’s self interest to have reform. He fears “extremist” voices getting seats in the government and propped up Kelly Leitch as his boogeyman.

Well, surprise Trudeau, but Kelly Leitch could very well be the leader of the Conservative Party of Canada. What are you going to do then? Ban her from running? Or is it that you’d actually rather run the chance of dangerous “anti-Canadian values” individuals getting top billing of your closest rival in the hopes of tarring them in future elections to keep your power?

And tell me, how is playing chicken with hateful, anti-Canadian rhetoric and beliefs in the best interest of Canadians?

If Trudeau legitimately wanted to safeguard Canadian values then it would be to open up proportional representation. Please, let Kelly Leitch run her own party. If she doesn’t represent the majority of Canadians she’ll get a meagre portion of the votes and end up with… what? Two or three seats? On the other hand, if she does represent Canadian values, then she’ll have to convince nearly 50% of Canadians that we’re all xenophobic assholes willing to throw our history, heritage and values in the garbage to bang some misleading drum about Islamophobia… errr, sorry, Barbaric Cultural Practices (TM).

But what you’re doing now is safeguarding nothing. You’re casting the dice, hopeful that Canadians will take her hateful words at face value and run back to the ballots to put you in place to keep her at bay from riding a minority of votes to a majority seats in the government. You’re basically asking us to support you, a self admitted liar and turncoat, to not believe your words but to believe your enemies. Because their words are scarier.

And you’re just a weasel trying to maintain control.

As it stands now, I’m looking at two big parties and neither represent Canadian values. And, news flash, but we don’t live in a two party system no matter how much you’d like that. There remains alternatives for me to choose. And those alternatives have historically siphoned off your votes leaving you in a helpless position to do nothing but watch as “anti-Canadian” advocates dismantle the country you profess to love. And it’s not like you even promised to enact Proportional Representation. You promised to end our broken First Past the Post where just about any other option would be better. Thus, I can only conclude that you’re keeping our broken electoral system (as described by you) simply because you think you can profit off it.

It’s a gamble and the most cynical one at that. And should the Conservatives not elect the boogeyman you’re hoping they will, I’ll shed zero tears if this blows up in your face.

Because it should. You’re not a normal politician, Justin. At least an honest one would have actually kept their word.

Grumpy White Men By The Sea

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I don’t always review video games on this blog. Sometimes I review other things as well. Video games just happen to be a field I’m more experienced in. But if there is one thing that I require little encouragement, it is in providing my unsolicited opinion about topics in which I’m not adequately knowledgeable to provide.

Thus, let’s do a movie review this week!

Oscar season is nearly upon us. At least, I assume Oscar season is nearly upon us. Perhaps it has already happen and this discussion is merely academic between two handsome intellectuals like you, dear reader, and myself. In which case, the rest of my introduction is wholly unnecessary so let’s just get to the review on Manchester by the Sea.

As is often my style, I’ll give the short summary before going into detail: I liked it.

There, if that was all you needed from me to form an opinion about something then we’re done! See you next week!

For a more in-depth and tirelessly examination of why is going to take quite a bit longer. And, of course, necessitate spoilers.

Manchester by the Sea and all associated images are properties of Kenneth Lonergan, Amazon Studios and whoever else.

I saw Manchester by the Sea almost two months ago. I realized I hadn’t seen much within the theatre that didn’t result in me complaining about big Hollywood blockbusters and how they’re morally and creatively bankrupt wastes of time design solely to fleece you of your money and return little more than a fleetingly saccharine experience. Manchester by the Sea is no such thing. It is, as we casuals like to say, an “artsy-farsty” movie. If you’re looking for big explosions, big set pieces and big noises then you’re going to be disappointed.

In fact, I had low expectations for the movie in the first place. By the time it actually released near me it was already generating a bunch of positive buzz but from the trailers I thought I had the movie pegged pretty squarely down: a redemptive story about some cold-hearted uncle returning to his ancestral home to raise his bereaved nephew and learning the importance of family, love, God and warm apple pie.

Ho, how wrong was I!

There’s a funny thing about expectation. Ofttimes it can be the most impactful element to determining your feelings on a piece of art. Usually I’m sorely disappointed because my expectations are well above what the artist is actually delivering. But there are the rare times when I completely misread a piece and am shocked to discover that it surpasses my expectations by doing something I never imagined and I didn’t even realize I wanted it to do.

Manchester by the Sea is such a movie. First, it’s a character piece. If you’re looking for a tight or compelling narrative then this is not the place for it. In fact, my earlier assumptions weren’t too far from the mark in what the actually story is about. But the thing with character pieces is that a simple story isn’t a detriment but often required in order to concentrate on the development and emotions of the character you’re examining. But the way that Manchester engages the audience is by exploring its character in a novel way:

They don’t talk about it.

Manchester by the Sea is more a movie of people not speaking than it is anything else. It’s both the source of the film’s greatest strengths and biggest missed opportunities. I have a keen interest in communicating without communication. Many of my stories involve characters that are either discussing some greater matter couched in a discourse over a petty incident or are telling a story through the things they won’t tell. So I was enraptured watching the film execute a technique with which I struggle constantly.

And the movie delivers on its method with varying success. I find it hard to believe that most audience goers don’t pick on this “lack of communication” element. It’s presented almost heavy-handedly but still manages to not be overbearing. I mean, the opening sequence with Casey Affleck working his janitorial job presents three instances of characters talking without directly talking.

You have the stilted conversation between the old man and Affleck as they stare at a dripping tap. In seconds you can get the older man’s frustrations as he tries to wrangle an answer for how he should fix the tap while Affleck – not being a plumber – refuses to say anything that could be held as a liability against him. Then, we see him fixing the toilet of a woman who is talking on the phone with a friend of hers in a neighbouring room where she’s going on and on about how she has a crush on her janitor and doesn’t know what she should do about it without realizing Affleck can hear every word. Then we have the most important (technique wise) conversation between Affleck and a tenant who thinks he’s being a pervert and trying to see her shower naked when in actuality he’s trying to tell her he simply needs to run the water to find where the leak is while getting more insulted with her insinuations.

The third interaction is perhaps the most important in my mind because it’s a moment where two characters are talking past each other. Presenting the audience with this technique early on and clearly is vital for the later interactions between characters to be understood. There’s a lot of moments in Manchester by the Sea where cross purposes are what lead to the tragedies its narrative encircles.

Following this rather lengthy opening sequence, we then see Casey Affleck go to a bar and turn down the advances of a single lady before displaying clear self-destructive tendencies by getting in a fight with two innocent bar goers. This clearly establishes Affleck’s character as a broken man from the start with the initial intrigue for the audience being the explanation for how he got there.

And this is the point where Manchester by the Sea sort of loses me.

I have no idea how this project was originally conceived by the pacing in its reveal of information seems rather disjointed to me. There are essentially three major hooks at the start of Manchester to draw the audience in to its unfolding story. These are, not in chronological order: why does Affleck have such a negative reputation in town, why is his nephew’s mother unable to be his guardian and why is Affleck self destructive? Unfortunately, two of these hooks are revealed by the end of the first act. The last of the hooks ends up being incredibly minor. We then have a large portion of the movie lurch between rather unnecessary scenes that reinforce what we’ve already learned by that neither advance the character’s arc or lead to a greater understanding of the situation.

And I can’t help but wonder if maybe this was the result of some editing room decisions. I want to say that Manchester by the Sea was originally conceived so that you never had a direct explanation for why Casey Affleck moved away from Manchester and is absolutely against raising his nephew. I feel like the movie meant for you to piece together a lot of vague scenes to come to the conclusion itself. Unfortunately, given what we have of the film, I could see in early screenings that a lot of audiences might be confused or unused to filling in the blanks themselves. Thus, a clear cut explanation was provided in a rather brutish and drawn out solution.

See, the worst part of the movie is when Affleck must sign the guardianship papers for his nephew. He then stares off into space as we go into a very long “flashback” sequence that illuminates us about why he’s self-exiled from his hometown. We learn of the tragic fire, the loss of his children and how he blames himself and tried to commit suicide. Then we hop back to reality and watch the rest of the movie unfold with the new understanding of his personal demons.

Except, so many of the scenes afterwards lose their poignancy because they mostly feel redundant. We see him try to get a job in Manchester but the wives of the men are adamant he shouldn’t be allowed within their stores. We know those minor characters blame him for the tragedy and think he’s irresponsible but this rather obvious conclusion was better represented in Affleck’s ex-wife’s sub-arc. We also have moments where he burns his pasta because he fell asleep on the couch and starts to panic. We know this is because it triggers his memories of the accident but it doesn’t make us feel any greater sympathy or emotional connection to the character. So much of the movie is this reinforcement of rather basic concepts already established that I can’t help but think they were the sole vessel for the narrative before.

If that were the case, I’d have really liked to see Manchester by the Sea without its flashback sequence. As such, I’d say that its pacing is easily the worst thing about the movie since there are many examples of small scenes that don’t do much but just remind you about characteristics of the principle characters that we already knew.

Now, the film still succeeds even with this clumsy editing. I think part of what makes Manchester by the Sea so powerful is that, ultimately, it’s not a redemption movie. We watch Affleck eventually fail to meet his duty to his brother and his family. The wounds inflicted by his past – all almost entirely self inflicted too – are simply too great for him to overcome. Here’s a dramatic moment that should transform a man and he shrinks away from it, retreating from the pain much like he was at the very start. It’s tragic and that’s what makes it work.

But as far as tragedies go, Manchester by the Sea is a fairly cerebral one. Ancient Greek tragedies were meant to put your emotionally through the wringer so that at the end you were utterly drained and left in a numbed state of catharsis. Manchester is a bit strange for its genre because it doesn’t really wring the emotions from you. I feel like it asks that you engage with the movie not emotionally but intellectually in order to understand what is happening. This is largely because, once again, no one is truly talking to each other. It’s like the whole movie is in passive voice and keeping you as detached from the involved emotions as Affleck is trying to be detached from his pain.

So… yeah. I enjoyed the film. It did something I could immediately recognize and in a way that was a little different to keep me intrigued. It’s experimental and from that experiment we see results not normally produced by traditional methods. It’s not particularly refined but I was engaged nonetheless. I would definitely say it’s Oscar worthy though I suspect it won’t be an Oscar winner.

But it has earned its acclaim. That is for certain.

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Brighter Basements

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Alas, this will be my last video game review for 2016. Not because I feel like five weeks is a long time to be doing reviews (because I’d keep going if I could). But simply because I’ve run out of new games I played in 2016. Alas, as you get older, you end up with less and less time. But that’s ok. I’m sure I can find something else to review from 2016 until I get to April and then go silent as I go back to novel writing.

Darkest Dungeon and all associated media and gruesome art is the sole property of the twisted psyche and corrupted imaginings of the disturbed folks of Red Hook Studios.

Not to say that there weren’t other games worthy of discussion that released. Sadly, I won’t be hitting up Pillars of Eternity since I’m nowhere near finished with it. Plus, I’ve started Age of Decadence which I’m surely going to discuss on a future date.

But we came for a review and a review I shall deliver. Thus, I present to you my opinions of Darkest Dungeon!

Unlike the other games I’ve reviewed that I haven’t finished, Darkest Dungeon is different than the rest. For one, I’ve tried twice now to get through it. However, it’s greatest negatives keep holding me back from finally completing the game. However, following that first point I know I will finish it because in the end I like the game despite it’s horrible stumbling.

But let’s start with the positives.

Darkest Dungeon drips atmosphere. It’s a dungeon crawling game that set out to blend Lovecraftian horror with Dungeons and Dragons tropes. Visually and audibly it hits those notes perfectly. I adore the the heavy inked visual style the game adopts. Even more, I love their direction for a early gunpowder era and their reimagining staples of class based party gameplay. The healer of the game is the Vestal who is some type of angry battle nun. Other support classes include the Middle Eastern Occultist who directly channels Lovecraft’s fantastical orientalist who is steeped in otherworldly knowledge and spiritualism. Then we have the plague doctor to address poisons and maladies.

Each class is delightfully flavoured and visually striking with distinctive abilities that make coming up with party combinations an interesting mix of careful planning and delightful discovery. Unfortunately, while they do have a large range of abilities, I find that certain builds seem far more useful than others so you will specialize most of your classes in a similar manner. This was a recurrent problem in Xcom so it’s more an unfortunate expectation than a large disappointment.

The expert visual design isn’t reserved just for the classes, however. Both the town and the dungeons are perfectly captured. You get a real sense of progression as you turn your rotting hamlet into a veritable fortress through investments of your family heirlooms into its well-being. And reclaiming those goods from the four themed dungeons is very engrossing. Each dungeon not only places an emphasis on different game elements but are also themed with different types of horror motifs. You have the catacombs filled with undead monsters immune to bleeding but vulnerable to holy powers and just outright damage. The warrens, however, are body horror caverns choked with cannibalistic pigs with large health pools and ready to spread disease at every corner but can be overcome with stuns and bleeding. The weald has been taken over by coven of hags and their mushroom monsters that poison but are susceptible to bleed. And finally the cove is crawling with Lovecraftian pelagic terrors that melt beneath acid.

The developers clearly adore the game and have provided a number of interesting updates since its release. One of them added town events to make your return from dungeon delving even more interesting – and potentially perilous.

As you explore these locales, you will have to overcome ambushes and consider how to interact with curios while attempting to complete a random assignment within its halls. I love the curio system that forces you to prepare your expeditions and guess which equipment will overcome potential traps to reveal even greater treasures then you’d normally discover. It adds yet another concern when your readying a mission than just selecting the best men and women for the job: you need to make sure they’ve got the best tools for the areas too.

There is a certain amount of repetition to the game, however. I happened to really enjoy the base exploration and combat mechanics which was fortunate for me because you do a lot of it. Your immediate goal is to train your adventurers to level six while upgrading their equipment in order to prepare them for taking on the horrors that await beneath your family estate. Since the game adopts a number of Xcom elements and roguelike properties, you’ll invariably be setback while you’re training your troops. There are different bosses available in each dungeon to hone your skills and test your fortitude. And for the most part these bosses are really fun.

But this bleeds into the biggest problem of the game. There is no getting around that after awhile the whole system feels like a grind. Part of it is due to the imbalanced difficulty. Low level missions are stacked in your favour while high level missions very clearly put you at a disadvantage. I’m normally ok with this sort of challenge but each setback doesn’t push you towards a failed game state – it just eats up time. You can’t technically lose Darkest Dungeon since every week you receive new adventurers to toss against the grinder of the different locations. However, each adventurer that dies represents a loss of time more than anything else. Adventurers are easily replaceable, it just takes forever to do so.

And the further you progress in the game, the easier it is to lose your investments.

At the time of this writing, there is an update in the works to reduce the time and grind investment of the game. As I am already locked into the original format, this has no bearing on my criticism though, once again, great on Red Hook for addressing the game’s shortcomings.

Contrast this with Xcom where the initial months of the game are the hardest as you’re stuck with substandard gear and inexperienced rookies. You don’t have the skills or armour to really push through opposition and some bad turns can make it so you can’t keep up with the alien progression. However, if you manage to make it through four months, you’ll have progressed past the alien’s technical prowess and find that you’re just rolling over even the scariest enemies. The more time you invest in a soldier in Xcom, the less likely you are to lose them.

It’s a tough tightrope to balance and it’s unfortunate that neither Darkest Dungeon nor Xcom really found that sweet spot.

So everytime you lose a hero it’s demoralizing only because you know just how much time it’s going to take to build another character up. And it’s not like those first couple of levels are hard either, as mentioned. Furthermore, there’s little in the ways of variety to make repeated levelling of new adventurers interesting. Each dungeon has three assorted bosses that you can kill for improved rewards and to unlock the next level of missions in that dungeon. Unfortunately, those bosses return again and again only with improved damage and health. I was excited at first to see the variation between the bosses and how dramatically the can change the scope of battle. But by the third encounter, you knew exactly that you needed to fight them and it was, once again, more a chore to slay them than any feeling of achievement.

Combat in Darkest Dungeon is turn based with your forces aligned in ranked rows against the enemy. Attacks target specific locations which makes eliminating key targets as well as shuffling formations out of position the key to victory.

But perhaps the worst offence for Darkest Dungeon was it’s titular final level. It was clear that these final levels were design to be the most nerve wracking for the player as you’re warned even retreating from those missions will incur an automatic random hero death as a party member falls in the retreat. What you don’t know until you’ve succeeded on a mission is that every member of that expedition refuses to take on another Darkest Dungeon foray. Thus, assuming that you don’t lose any heroes whatsoever in the course of the game, you need at minimum sixteen heroes at max level and equipment to beat the game. And this is ignoring the inevitable setbacks that the system is designed to incur. Even worse in particular with the Darkest Dungeon is that you really need to have a party tailored to the particular challenges of that level if you want to succeed – something you won’t know until you embark. Which then means you’ll lose at least one hero automatically when you invariably have to retreat. That’s more heroes that require training and equipment. And this is ignoring that certain heroes are far better in the missions than others so some of the heroes you’re levelling end up not being that useful in the end after all.

Which means you’re back to grinding up low level adventurers to deal with the final mission. And then, of course, the real nail in the coffin is that adventurers refuse to do missions below their difficulty level so you need to keep enough adventurers at each difficulty step to train up the recruits you’ll need in the end.

It’s a long, grindy chore. And it’s really bad. I can see what the designers were attempting and I applaud their commitment to the challenge but I can’t help and feel like there must be a better way to implement those ideas. Personally, I would have liked to see the Darkest Dungeon restrictions scaled back. Either have automatic death on retreat or have party members refuse further expeditions – not both. That would ease a bit of the unnecessary grind in the end – which will be well over seventy hours if you wanted to go and kill all the different permutations of the different bosses before taking on the final missions.

As it stands now, there’s really no point in playing Darkest Dungeon without loading up an online guide or walkthrough to cut significantly down on the time you have to take to make up for mistakes. And that’s why I prefer Xcom’s execution over Darkest Dungeon. With Xcom, failure is less frustrating since your options for bouncing back are better. Or, in the worst case scenario, you can simply restart the entire Xcom campaign and still finish a second try without coming anywhere near Darkest Dungeon’s runtime. Darkest Dungeon straight up punishes you for experimenting and learning and it drains the enjoyment from the game.

Each class has specific barks within game which extends to when their will gets tested if they experience too much stress. Darkest Dungeon requires that you manage both your heroes physical and mental health if you wish for them to survive.

Which is a pity because otherwise it hits the rest of its notes pitch perfectly. The story is… well… adequate enough for what it’s trying to accomplish. I think it’s telling that I felt the four base dungeons were more engaging and interesting than the Darkest Dungeon itself which oddly enough seems less horrific despite its attempts to try and up the scale of cosmic horror. But it quickly becomes more over the top than anything else. That and coupled with the aforementioned frustration sucks what fun horror you could extract regardless.

But I know I’ll finish the game and for one reason alone:

The narration.

My goodness is the narrator in Darkest Dungeon amazing. Between the moody dialogue and the expert delivering, I could listen to the Darkest Dungeon soundbytes all day. And with such lines as “Prestigious size alone is of no intrinsic value unless inordinate ex-sanguination is to be considered a virtue” how can you not love it? The tale of the Ancestor’s fall isn’t one that has an inherent draw but the voice actor’s performance make you want to hear every single twisted turn in it over and over again.

Major kudos to the actor and writer for easily the best audio in a game all year. Which is good, because you’ll be hearing him warn about trapped halls and corridors for many, many hours as you retread your steps in the unending gruel that is…

The Darkest Dungeon.

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Please Excuse My Oversight

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Well no review of video games in 2016 would be complete without touching on Overwatch. Like them or hate them, Blizzard seem adept in grooming a loyal purchasing base that will buy into every release so that it recoups development costs and then some. Overwatch – by nearly all metrics – is a success. It makes money hand over fist. It won numerous game industry accolades. It sports an enormous player base. It is, presumably, the shot in the arm for the company that has been mired in some bad press of whatever the hell is going on with World of Warcraft nowadays. Diablo 3 and Starcraft 2, while financially great, were critically floundering.

Overwatch and all associated images and media belong to Blizzard Entertainment and its associated artists and whatnot. But hey, at least they’ve finally expanded beyond their three rip-off IP into a sorta, maybe original but still somewhat rip-off IP!

Course, you could argue that Hearthstone was the financial and critical shot in the arm but I don’t follow Hearthstone at all. I mean, I tried it since Jeremy threw a beta invite to me. And I played it enough with its free pack until I came up against opponents which I simply could no longer beat without investing money in the game. It’s a digital collectable card game which mostly means whoever has the most disposable cash to pump into it will likely be the winner. There’s a reason I don’t play Magic (which you can dig through the archives to read) and that reason holds for why I don’t play Hearthstone.

Now, if you’ve been following the blog, Overwatch not getting my Game of the Year will come as no surprise. I’ve gone into great details about its shortcomings. But it’s been half a year and I’ve “beaten” it insofar as one can beat and endless online team-based shooter. So after half a year, where do we stand on the game?

Well, honestly, it’s still fun. And it’s still frustrating. The underlying issues are ever present. My misanthropy makes the game more of a slog when playing alone. There’s still the issue where a very small select of heroes are essentially required if you want to win matches (and often you’re hoping the enemy team is also full of selfish players that don’t want to be forced into the necessary heroes). We still have the issue of being held hostage to Blizzard’s random map choices (also rather important since as of this writing there’s a large bug that makes one hero nearly impossible to play on KOTH maps). And, of course, the window dressing of the game is still largely embarrassing. Though, I suppose Blizzard has officially made their mascot a lesbian so there’s that feather for their cap.

Blizzard as a company is pretty unapologetically evil Social Justice Warriors. They’ve done a very good job of providing lots of varied presentation in their character design and level locations lending the game a very smart, global appeal.

On the flip side, I’m still playing the game. So that’s a boon to Blizzard. It’s not the best game in its genre but it’s good enough. And more to Blizzard’s credit, they’ve been very good about supporting the game post launch. Overwatch has received two new heroes and two new maps not to mention celebrating four holiday events. The Overwatch development team stated they wanted to have “something” new released for the game every month and they’ve been pretty consistent in delivering on that goal.

Even better, the team has gone back to some original heroes and reworked their numbers and their kits. The most prominent of these changes was to a hero named Symmetra. She is basically the left over bits from Team Fortress’ Engineer character after Blizzard finished designing Torbjorn. Unfortunately for Symmetra, she was simply not good on release. I played her a bit (more than was certainly healthy) and could have written a very lengthy post covering in detail her failings. In large part, I think she was designed around her ultimate ability: the Engineer’s teleporter. Unfortunately, the way that Blizzard has implemented the teleporter has made it near universally a bum choice. So, in their rework, they gave Symmetra a choice of ultimates. She can either lay down the limited use teleporter or place a shield generator that is both more powerful than the weak personal shields she initially provided in terms of amount of health it covers and is useful in far more situations than the first point defence on hybrid maps where Symmetra had carved a very narrow niche.

And, outside of a few quality of life improvements, Symmetra was given a new ability. She can project a barrier with one thousand health that her team can hide behind. This has been a simple but fantastic ability and quite unexpected. Prior to Symmetra’s rework, Blizzard had shown no interest in actually overhauling abilities. Their usual tweaks were generally number adjustments in an attempt to push a hero into viability through sheer mathematics alone. Projected barrier not only showed that Blizzard was quite willing to simply throw out a bad idea but it ended up being a quite strong ability in its own right. Granted, projected shield is mostly great because Symmetra’s gun is a terror for the time being, but I’ve enjoyed frying witless enemies for weeks now and I hope that this continues on to the future.

The new heroes have been interesting as well. It shows an evolution in terms of Blizzard’s design capabilities. And while Sombra and Ana both come with ability kits packed with tons of utility, they’ve both also been really enjoyable to play. The earliest hero designs were a bit one note and bland so having these more unique characters in the game makes me eager to see what they’ll be trying next. And they’ve already announced that a third new hero is in the works with speculation swirling around it being a new tank. If they release a tank hero that is as enjoyable as Sombra, I’ll be over the moon (largely because no one in pubs wants to play tanks for some baffling reason).

The holiday events have been fun too. I mean, they’re mostly awful. I think only the Halloween Mann versus Machine-esque mode was worth playing. I know I only played the Mei’s Snowball Nightmare until I got my free chest and never loaded it again. But for those seeking a bit of gameplay variety it can be nice. And they released an update to allow separate queues for the Arcade modes which is some rules variations to the standard format of Overwatch’s games.

Credit where it’s due, Overwatch is a very visually appealing game. I would say their environmental artists really knock the level presentation out of the park even as the actual design leaves so much to be desired.

And, of course, there are the hats. Everyone wants the newest hats and some people are willing to drop way too much money on buying them. I won’t. I bought the game and absolutely refuse to spend an additional dime on it. Especially since it’s steep initial cost still hasn’t been quite met even with these additional content updates. But thankfully Blizzard has an in-game currency which can be used to buy whatever you like. And play long enough and most of your loot boxes from leveling will just be dupes that give you a slow trickle of Blizzard coins to save for these events.

Overall, Overwatch is ok. It’s fun but marred by some rather horrible design decisions. However, Blizzard is committed to supporting the scarred baby and for that I’m appreciative. I’ll probably still load it up all through 2017 since its short rounds is the perfect antidote to the scarce hours of evening play available to me. Whether I continue to play into 2018 is questionable. But there are worse things one could do in their spare time.

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Starry Eyed but Not Star Struck

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Continuing our exploration of 2016, there’s another game I wish to discuss. Unlike Xcom 2, however, this title is a little more difficult. At least with Xcom 2 I could gush incoherently for two thousand words, recommend people pick it up then go back to making custom soldiers in the hopes of one day having a pool so large I wouldn’t require any randomly generated fools to show up in my fight against the aliens.

But while this one has aliens, murder, customization and a strong core design which it is attempting to refine, I can’t quite hold it to the same esteem. This game wasn’t going to win my Game of the Year accolade. In fact, I’d be surprised if it won anyone’s Game of the Year title. It’s a troubled little game, filled with good ideas and intentions but hampered by poor execution and mismanaged resources.

Starbound and all associated images belong to Chucklefish Games.

It’s made all the more pointed by the fact that the game was the in-house development for the company that published Stardew Valley. I am, of course, talking about Starbound – the Terraria (but not Terraria) science fiction game of exploration, resource gathering, dwelling building and boss killing by a Terraria designer (but not the Terraria designer).

I think it’s noteworthy that Stardew Valley is my Game of the Year and this is not. They share a number of similarities: 2D pixel graphics, retro game style, quirky aesthetic and casual gameplay. Unfortunately for Starbound, the game never really comes together like Stardew Valley does. And, alas, this is going to be a recurring theme throughout my review: not that Starbound isn’t as good as Stardew Valley but that Starbound is constantly compared to other games and routinely comes up short.

It’s impossible to discuss Starbound without mentioning Terraria. Least of which is because the lead designer Tiy honed his teeth on Terraria. However, I’ve played that game and actually loved it despite my hesitations. It was multiplayer so Derek dragged me into its murderous depths. Which was likely the only way I would pick up Terraria because it is not a pretty game by any measure. Its visuals are functional which is about the greatest compliment one can offer Terraria. So if there is one thing Starbound does better than its competitors, is that it really hits that visual charm.

However, Terraria really sucks you in through a very clever and well executed game mechanic loop. You’re initially thrown into a flat plain world with little direction save that you can go left, right or (as you soon discover) down. There’s a fun element of exploration as you are trying to figure out how to survive in Terraria’s strange little world that’s procedural generated so no two games are ever exactly the same. Once you figure out how to dig you begin to discover ores and with them recipes for crafting better tools, workstations and armour to protect yourself against the denizens of the world. As your base camp grows, so too does your ability to survive further afield. You’re soon learning that there are different biomes filled with their own hazards, monsters and rewards. In time, the player will discover certain boss monsters that will, invariably, murder them on first encounter. But then you learn the tactics to fight them, are elated at the great rewards you get for their murder and then start hunting for the next boss. In the meanwhile, you’re constantly looking to improve and expand your home with all the goodies and decorations you find and learn throughout your adventure.

It’s a fantastic loop where exploration leads to new challenge which requires the next tier of item improvements and advancement to overcome which rewards items that unlock the next step in exploration and the next challenge. Progress is clearly noted through the specific improvement in equipment and territory explored. You never once feel set back because even on death you know that you’re facing a more difficult adversary.

And it still includes the block building that made Minecraft popular. However, the building is but a single component of a greater cohesive whole. You want to build up your base because then you can attract different villagers who will provide you with new services or resources you wouldn’t have otherwise. And random events help to keep the players on their toes without resting too much on their success and shaking up predictability.

It’s very successful. It gives you the satisfaction of progression combined with the eagerness to see what’s next to come.

And it’s this simple feedback loop that Starbound entirely flubs.

I think part of the problem with Starbound was its early announcement and lengthy development in Early Access. Coupled with a poor initial design structure it languished in a troubled four year development cycle that doesn’t show that much time in its final product.

I understand why Starbound staggers in his department. It didn’t want to be a Terraria clone but wanted to fly on its own merits. Sadly, its very introduction is going to make any Terraria veteran leery about that premise. Outside of a stock opening that does the bare minimum to introduce the player to the world and mechanics, Starbound mostly thrusts you into a procedural generated world where you can only explore left, right or down. You must collect enough ores in order to craft armour and weapons that allow you to beat the first boss that then gives you access to new biomes with new ores that you use to improve your items in order to fight harder bosses that open up new areas to explore.

It’s Terraria but its done a whole lot worse. For one, while Terraria gives the illusion of freedom, you are pretty assured to progress down a very similar route as other players simply due to the structure of the game and the availability of certain resources. Starbound attempted to eschew this directed progression and expand further on a small element of Terraria: exploration. Once you’ve repaired your ship, the universe is yours to command. Unfortunately, true freedom in movement would ruin any sense of progression so areas are “scaled” and “locked” behind certain item requirements. Specific planet types are classified based on an unspecified “threat level” that gives an indication of how deadly its surface is. This accounts for the monster level and the environment effects. And while Starbound really wanted to give the illusion of a vast and special universe, it somehow manages to come across as more bland and generic than Terraria despite having way more locales to explore.

Part of this is through the poorly implemented procedural generation. Monsters are randomly generated for a number of planets but they mostly recycle the same small collection of body parts. It’s a cute idea that – in theory – would create a staggering amount of variation. In practice, you’ll see a lot of very familiar creatures that are the exact same as two star systems over, they might just have an eyeball on their tail instead. Furthermore, there are a number of pre-generated monsters that possess more complex behaviour and attack patterns (in an attempt to reach a more complex combat mechanic that’s closer to Terraria). However, there’s no real restriction on these pre-made monster spawn locations. Visit one garden planet and you’ll have essentially visited them all – not to mention have seen probably half or more of what a jungle, bog or Eden planet has to offer. The variety between planets isn’t as important as the variety between planet types so you’re basically better off exploring one of each than visiting multiple of a similar kind. This drastically reduces the sense of wonder and exploration of the universe as you’re mostly scouring through a small niche of different stars now, looking specifically for the one or two planet types you haven’t seen yet then setting down at any place that sounds interesting. And this isn’t even touching the random dungeons and points of interest which are equally recycled. I’ve lost count of the number of underground greenhouses I’ve discovered growing plastic plants and nothing of interest.

So, instead of needing a vast universe of cookie cutter planets, you could have simply had a single solar system with the six or so different planet types present in a row that you could hop across. In this way, you’d certainly feel a greater sense of progress as you moved from the interior of the system to the exterior (or vice versa). As Starbound is now, you don’t really feel any sense of progress. You’re simply coasting from one system to another, searching for different planet types and passing over all the ones you’ve already seen hours before. You might stumble across a planet that’s well out of your league early on then, depending on the direction you take, you might end up in a whole cluster of low level star systems. There’s nothing engaging about the slow crawl through the universe map and – least of all – any sense of accomplishment for pushing its boundaries out further and further.

I feel like the developers realized at some point that they were creating too much of a sandbox without enough direction to focus the game within it. To combat this, there is the Ark. This operates as a central hub, accessed through your ship’s teleporter or any ancient gateway you find on starter planets. This location is the same for every game, filled with the necessary merchants to see certain game elements can function. Unfortunately, there isn’t anywhere near the engagement with the Ark as there is with your home in Terraria. You don’t really accumulate important NPCs at the Ark like you do in Terraria. There are characters you pick up as the game progresses but they aren’t vital as the ones who already start there and mostly offer tangential tasks barely indistinguishable from those offered by the quest system. Furthermore, the Ark is a “protected” area which means you’re unable to affect the blocks there. This was, of course, designed so players couldn’t accidentally destroy a vital shop or something. It also means that they can’t add on to it either.

This isn’t to mean that the base building component is absent from the game. But it’s so incredibly incidental to the actual game play itself. In Starbound, you can form colonies by purchasing multiple colony deeds at one of the vendors in the Ark. When these are posted in a legal “dwelling” then a tenant will teleport in and take up residence. This individual will offer you rent (often in the form of useless items but every now and then they’ll remember to pay you in actual cash) and different tenants can provide different services. They are even tied into the procedural quest generation system. However, these quests are as simple as you would imagine. Typically, they’ll direct you to the nearest spawned point of interest and require that you either escort a randomly generated NPC back to them or that you trade with a randomly generated merchant for some boring knickknack. Complete enough quests for a tenant and they may offer to join your crew. Likewise, you can come across randomly generated villages and complete quests for those residences to get crew members.

The races of Starbound are cute but beyond the initial charm of a juxtaposition between an animal and human culture, there isn’t really much else going for them. We have Japanese fish, Fascist apes, Generic humans, Cowboy gas people, Carnivorous plants, Aztec birds and Medieval robots. 

And more than anything, this is the strongest sense of progression in the game. The more crew you have join with you, the larger your ship will grow. Unfortunately, to expand your ship you also need to find enough upgrade modules which are simple loot spawned randomly in random dungeons. So even if you don’t want to, you’ll find yourself beaming down to boring planets you’ve already seen to search through dungeons you’ve already explored hoping that crates you’ve already opened will spawn modules you’ve already collected.

It’s a game of repetition and its excitement loses its lustre really quick.

Once again, I feel the developers realized the problem they were facing and thus the Ark provides the final core pillar of game play – a main quest. Terraria doesn’t possess a story of any kind. I mean, there might be lore if you cared but really the only impetus to move forward is the player’s own innate curiosity and desire to see the next step in the game. Starbound, however, introduces the player to the most uninspired and cliched plot a human could possibly devise in 2016 – there is some tentacled eldritch monster thing that’s broken out of prison and is trying to eat the universe and it’s up to you as the sole survivor of a special Earth task force to stop it. If this doesn’t sound familiar then you haven’t played: Mass Effect, Borderlands, Half-life, Halo, Crono Cross, Xcom, Starcraft, Metroid, Spore, Prototype, Day of the Tentacle, Alien Swarm, Doom, Dead Space… I mean just pick up a science fiction story and you’ve got a good chance that the core idea was already covered and done so in a manner far more compelling than Starbound.

Granted, I should a make a full disclosure here: I haven’t actually beaten Starbound yet. Instead, I’ve run into a rather game breaking bug that prevents me from loading my save. Because – more full disclosure – I’m running a massive overhaul mod for the game. Anyway, I’ve sunk around 130 hours into the game so I feel qualified enough to review it despite having not finished the main quest. And, get this, the main quest is about six missions long. That’s how disengaging it is. I’ve spent 130 hours actively avoiding the main quest because of how dry and dull this element was. Which, ironically, should have been the strongest element of the game.

You see, main missions are run in separated instances of the game world. They take place on “protected” maps which mean the player can’t place or remove blocks. It’s entirely based on the game play elements outside of the base building. Unfortunately, despite the variability in options, the combat and movement portions of the game are both incredibly shallow and really poorly done. This is the starkest contrast between Terraria and Starbound. I actually enjoyed fighting bosses in Terraria. I wanted to see what the next challenge was. I wanted to explore the newest biome.

Starbound’s bosses are really easy. Especially if you’ve accidentally crafted more advanced armour than the level of the boss. Which is incredibly easy to do since, in order to unlock the boss, Chucklefish have developed the most boneheaded mission type. Since the levels are removed from the universe, they can only be loaded by a specific panel on your ship once you’ve found the coordinates for the mission. In order to learn the mission’s coordinates, you have to find an unspecified number of alien artefacts related to one of the major races in the Starbound universe.

This translates into scouring random planets hoping for a random but specific village spawn. I happened to run into a lot of Apex and Avian villages at the start of the game so ended up exploring and progressing down the planet difficulties long before I stumbled across the required Floran village that I needed (and wasn’t even on the recommended planet type either) to unlock the second mission. I mean, I understood that certain stars are more likely to spawn certain villages but it’s not a guarantee. And after getting bored on three gentle stars that are all basically the same, I wanted to see something else. I’ve done four main missions now and have breezed through them all (barring the first which is actually properly paced entirely because it preceded the stupid scanning requirements).  Even worse, despite these missions being hand crafted, the levels aren’t even that interesting. I’ve seen random dungeons that are more engaging that these mission levels. And this isn’t even touching the fact that most of the platforming in these levels is almost entirely negated by the tech upgrades you can pick up.

And tech upgrades are available once you’ve randomly looted enough tech chips that spawn in random chests like upgrade modules but far more frequently so you’ll have the best tech well before you’re anywhere close to having a full size ship. So the levels aren’t challenging, the bosses aren’t challenging and the story connecting them together is about as threadbare and banal as one could possibly imagine.

I could go into great detail about how the plot and themes of Starbound could easily be addressed or how they should have put more focus into their story elements instead of having them seemingly slapped on. But then it would feel like I was putting in more effort than Chucklefish on the matter and it’s simply not worth it. Suffice to say, for a game called Starbound, they should have given players motivation to bound towards the stars instead of having a main quest and game play which actively discourages it.

So, this is a lot of bad but what about the good?

As I mentioned prior, Starbound allows modding. I specifically loaded up three mods: one to correct the Avian so they have scaled hands (feathered hands make no damn sense); one to make the death animation of characters a bit more dynamic than just a disco flash of light; and one to actually correct this horrible progression issue in the game.

Specifically I run Frackin Universe which has expanded the content in the game astronomically. I know I wouldn’t have put in nearly as much time if I hadn’t used FU. FU tries to gateway some of the content behind equipment requirements by making higher level planets too dangerous to explore due to environmental effects if you haven’t built the proper protections for them. These protections are crafted from ores found on the prior tier planet so you have a logical focus of working your way through planet types in order to open up more worlds. And you want to progress into the more dangerous worlds because the resources you can find allow you to craft unique items and equipment. Now, the progression isn’t perfect since it’s still working in Starbound’s haphazard universe generation but it does make it more forceful in how you can proceed. Also, the amount of content makes discovery better since you’re apt to run into new things even sixty or seventy hours into playing.

Finally, we’re going to touch on Starbound’s greatest strength and the reason why I believe it has what popularity it has: aesthetic. There’s no denying that the artistic direction of the game is fantastic. It’s easily the best of the pixel 2D graphic games I’ve played. And the work the artists have done is actually awe-inspiring. The amount of different biomes and alien worlds, not to mention how weird some of them truly get, is a joy. You can wander amongst enormous plants or crunch across planets formed of eyeballs. Even better, the backgrounds change depending on the biome and solar system you are in. If there are different planets and stars in the system, you’ll see them rise in the horizon. This extends down into the blocks you can collect and the decorations you can build to place in your houses.

But you can make really pretty buildings. And find some too.

The building portion is, hands down, the most fun you’ll have with the game. You will explore solely to find new recipes and items that you can craft back home. You’ll find planets that you’ll want to establish weird farms or colonies upon. Upgrading and decorating your ship has been easily the most time consuming and most rewarding portion of the game. Here you can see through the accumulation of unique discoveries, expanding spaces and lively crew the fruits of your playing of the game.

The visual charm does all it can to excuse the horrible writing. And I’m not even being unnecessarily critical here. You’ll find grammar errors within the first ten minutes of the game. I can’t be bothered to read the lore snippets for how insipid their little tales are and for the number of mistakes contained within them. However, I’m willing to suspend my disbelief towards gasbag cowboys, cannibalistic space ork plants, medieval robots and Japanese fish people because they’re brought to life by the art department so well. Their villages and decorations bring a unity of design that the writing team absolutely fails to deliver and provides a better canvas for you to re-imagine a world with all its charm and quirk while ignoring the one Chucklefish cobbled together.

And, of course, there’s the music. I absolutely adore the soundtrack in the game. I rarely notice background music but when a favourite tune starts playing, I’m apt to stop exploring just to enjoy the medley. I’ve recently discovered (read: stolen) a music box from an Apex village and have enjoyed flicking through the tunes available on it when I placed it on the bar on my ship. The soundtrack is perhaps the only thing that has assuaged my guilt over pre-ordering the game because otherwise I would have been very angry with myself given the issues with its release and development.

Finally, Chucklefish have shown some much appreciated post launch love. It’s received a couple of content updates. Now, none of these have addressed my main concern. One was a fishing update (and I only recently learned how to fish at that!) and the other added post game content that – at this rate – I may never actually see because I really, really, really hate going through their main quest. But the more content they add, the more they can delay the boredom of repetitive content when slogging through their core game.

In the end, there’s some real talent in the Chucklefish house that’s hamstrung by incredibly awful decisions. The art and music side of Chucklefish is certainly propping up the game design side but, unfortunately, they can only carry them so far. I feel like Starbound was a game whose scope quickly blinded Chucklefish to what’s important to their vision. They seemingly learned no lessons in their predecessor’s success, charging headlong to address shortcomings in Terraria’s design but unaware that they were careening straight into pitfalls that the prior game was designed to circumvent. In the end, Starbound creates a game that is largely not worth playing. But if you dig through the mud far enough, you’ll find diamonds hidden beneath the surface. Its pull is in elements that should have supplemented a far more engaging core instead of accidentally copying engaging elements without even realizing why they were good in the first place. But if you like building, there’s some fun to be had here which is relaxing and bite-sized so you can pick away at your creations a little here and there before discovering just how much time has flown by.

December Bookshelf

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Well, as we cross into the New Year it is a time of reflection. So I thought I would look back on some of the books I read in December.

 

Book cover from the internet, not owned by me.

The Palace Job by Patrick Weekes

This was by far my favourite book of the season. It was different, new and high adventure. The story revolved around a thief out to procure a book from one of the heavily guarded vaults in the Republic. To accomplish this goal, she collects a varied group of individuals each with a unique skill set. But even that does not make the task much easier as her opponents are both crafty and ruthless.

It was reminiscent of Ocean’s Eleven, if the story was set in the most fantastical of fantasy worlds. This was a high fantasy landscape filled with floating cities, magic, monsters, fairies and gods – or at least their devoted and powerful worshipers.

It was exciting, engaging and so much fun. This is a story I would recommend for those in search of high adventure and some cleaver thieves. Yes, I do plan on reading any and all sequels to this book.

 

Dragon-Ridden by T.A. White

The dragon-ridden may be a fantasy blend of human and dragon souls, but what set this story apart was not the protagonist suffering from amnesia or the solidly crafted fantasy world. Rather, what has me reflecting back on this book was the surprising element of science-fiction; space travel and colonists from another world. There was just enough information shared with the audience for me to piece together the back story of the protagonist, who has woken from cryogenic sleep after a very long time. That she came from another planet, I don’t think is debatable. That she was part of the crew, a leader, who became the worshiped gods of old is rather intriguing.

While I approach the blending of space travel and a more historic fantasy world with caution, I do feel this author was able to pull off the blend of magic and genetic splicing. I would be interested to read a sequel if they were to write another.  Though, I would not rate this book as high as The Palace Job, there were some character actions and words that seemed too forced or awkwardly presented, there was much to interest me in this story that I would give the author another chance.

 

Book cover from the internet, not owned by me.

Cast in Flight by Michelle Sagara

Cast in Flight is book 8 or 9 in the series by Michelle Sagara. I hadn’t really enjoyed the previous book and was figuring I had pretty much finished with the series, even if the author hasn’t. Certainly the first couple of chapters had me wondering if I would just return this book to the library. But I kept at it (I didn’t have anything else out at the time) and in the end I really enjoyed this one. There was more talking, more relationship building and much less fighting. For me it was far more interesting. Funny as I would also say it was far more political in story than many of the other books in the series. Politics is something I usually shy away from. This time I was delighted to spend a book following the lives of Kaylin and her various friends. That said, I am not committed to reading the next novel. And still feel the best series as those in the 4 book range. This one is certainly very, very long.

 

Book cover from the internet, not owned by me.

The Bird and the Sword by Amy Harmon

Fairy tale in feel the Bird and the Sword started out more interestingly than it ended. It was filled with just enough magic and mystery to make it interesting, but it did start to lag as we progressed through it. Not based on any one fairy tale the story had many familiar elements.

The magic system was sort of interesting in the manner in which it was tied into religion. However, the cliché of burning all witches as mostly boring. I was interested in the way that the protagonist was mute. However, I still question the explanation that she could not communicate telepathically until she could read. The reason being that she didn’t have the words. But she was not deaf, so she still had the words, just not in written form. This a felt was a very weak explanation. And reflective of the whole. Mostly good, an easy read, but not as solid as it could have been. I still enjoyed it, just a little lower on the rating scale.

 

Smoke and Mirrors by Jess Haines

Okay, it has been a while since I read this book. What I remember was enjoying the story as frivolous fun. I recall a story about a young woman just finishing college for mages in New York (or some other large city) who decides she needs to find a dragon.

Unfortunately, the story suffered from weak writing. My biggest complaint was character inconsistency. One woman is introduced as a terror who hates the protagonist and tries to kill her on first sight. This same violent individual devises a plan of sharing information that leads yet another character to again try and kill the female protagonist. Only, when this attack does go down the violent woman is immediately and inexplicably regretful. She didn’t mean for this to happen even though she set it up.

The author spent way too much time trying to set up very tried and tired scenes. Characters do things because the messy plot dictates this to be so. The main character is supposed to be proud, strong and independent while simultaneously being poor and desperate. She runs hot and cold, weak and strong with the male lead. The tone changes because the scene requires that change, even if it doesn’t fit with the character development.

The author also plotted as many clichéd moments and stereotypical events as possible into one story. Adding more tropes does not make your story better. Sure I appreciate the take on poverty and agree that being poor does not mean that you don’t work hard. But really, you don’t need to lecture me. And if you are so poor, can you really afford to be stupidly stubborn?

The story was light, mostly fun, but poorly written.

 

Banquet of Lies by Michelle Diener

Of the books listed here, I think it was my most disappointing read. For a book that was taking a real event of political intrigue (a treaty between Britain and Russia if memory serves), the author did nothing with it. I loved the setup of a wealthy, well-traveled and unconventional woman hiding out as a chef in Regency London. It was different and the character’s background was devised in such a way to make this seem plausible. What followed after that was poor characterization and a pathetic attempt to play at spy. The characters were lackluster, the plot was rather silly in the end and overall it fell flat. Yes, I realize that it was categorized as a Regency Romance, but the romance was also very lame and poorly handled. Overall, this was a flop.

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New Year Old Ways

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What a year 2016 has been. It’s really hard to condense that time period down to just a few sentences. But perhaps upheaval is the closest word we can get. Well, it’s 2017 now and it’s time to start off the year – and the blog – on a fresh page.

Or is it? I mean, we’re already posting late but this was also a holiday season that had left all three of us profoundly busy. So we have a bit of a “two steps forward, one step back” situation. As such, today’s post isn’t truly going to be about a fresh start or any of that. Instead, we’ll do what most people are doing at the beginning of a new calendar year.

And that’s looking back at what we’ve covered.

Before the holiday break, I’d posted my Game of the Year. If you hadn’t seen it already… well… spoilers but I gave it to Stardew Valley. It was and continues to be my game of the year even if I spent most of my time sounding off a little harshly over its shortcomings. However, it was also the game that truly opened up my sister to the wonders of the medium and that alone I think is noteworthy.

But there were other notable releases and I want to spend the next couple of weeks discussing them. Partly because I have nothing of other substance to post. But largely 2016 had more than a few releases worthy of discussion and I’d rather they didn’t fade from the spotlight as we sweep out the dust of our recent past.

So let’s talk about Xcom 2.

Xcom 2 and all associated images belongs to Firaxis and 2k Games.

Xcom 2 is a sequel to Firaxis’ Xcom: Enemy Unknown released in 2012. It’s not to be confused with X-Com: UFO Defence developed by Mythos Games and MicroProse and released in 1994. You see, one has a dash in it and that makes it all the better.

I’ve never actually played the original X-Com series. I heard it was well loved. I understood that it was a cult classic. And I recall the vitriol generated when the rights were bought by 2k Games and the company announced they were rebooting the franchise as a first person shooter.

Well, thank all the earth’s deities that there was righteous Internet indignation since this brought to 2K Games’ attention that people actually like turned based strategy titles. For, they did release their rebooted Xcom shooter game to many a middling review and poor sales. But as an attempt to appease the riotous online community, they threw a few of their Civilization developers on making a cute little throwback to these crying adults’ childhood and released the critically and commercial acclaimed Enemy Unknown. Then, suddenly euphoric over praise and success, Firaxis and 2k Games followed up with the even more engrossing Enemy Within expansion pack in a world that was obsessed with nickle and dime DLC releases.

And though there continued to be diehard naysayers still clutching to their sprite 2D graphic pearls and bemoaning the decay of proper civilization, most people truly enjoyed this re-envisioning and revitalization of the series. I was amongst these new fans and put in far more hours than I dare admit. Even more impressive, a bunch of hobbyists got together and cobbled a masterstroke in amateur modding to release the Long War overhaul that added an even greater strategic and complexity layer to the game that people are still playing it even now.

There have already been several DLC releases for Xcom 2 much like there were for Xcom: Enemy Unknown. Just like the Slingshot DLC, these are largely unnecessary. The additional customization and missions are nice but there’s nothing really added by them that couldn’t be supplemented by mods. Hopefully a future expansion pack will really put a spin on the game to compete with the free modifications from the community.

Xcom: Enemy Unknown was essentially everything that’s great and wonderful about PC gaming coming together in a pitch perfect melody. The only sour note to the whole experience was a fairly clunky and unresponsive UI hampered by the fact the game was initially designed for a cross-platform release. And while this shouldn’t mean that design decisions are scaled more to console performance and navigation – it always means that the PC version is hampered by the weaker platform’s limitations. For one of the greatest victims in Firaxis’ revitalization and cross-platform development was procedural generated levels.

You see, Xcom is a game all about chance.

It’s part of the beauty and the frustration of the game. Anytime one of your soldiers takes aim at an enemy xeno-soldier, the game informs you of the percentage chance of your shot connecting. It’s easy to read into the numbers as a short hand for “hit” or “miss” but the game does a very good job of brutally reminding players how chance actually works. You will miss three 95% shots in a row. The enemy will achieve critical strikes on 30% shots. Your best laid plans will fail. Your soldiers will die. You learn that the strategy is all about minimizing loss and maximizing the chances in your favour. Then, above all, you learn how to deal with the inevitable setbacks.

To drive home this large element of the “unknown,” much of the game revolved around randomized elements. Your mission location and objective were random. The enemies and where they would spawn are random. Even the location of Meld canisters – essentially timed treasure chests – were random. The only thing that wasn’t was the map itself. So after one playthrough of the game, I personally found Xcom to get a little bit repetitive. You start to learn where aliens are likely to spawn. You know, despite the random starting position, the location you should move your squad and the important ground to capture in the early part of the mission. While this sort of repetition leads to mastery, it also detracted from that razor edge the game balanced upon in all of its other aspects.

Thus, when Xcom 2 was announced as a PC only release, I was ecstatic. When they stated that it was going to have procedural generated levels, I knew I was going to buy it on its first day of release. That the developers made the game even more fine-tuned and interesting beyond having newly created maps for each mission is just an incredible bonus.

Really, I couldn’t possibly gush about Xcom 2 more. It just hit every possible right note. Firaxis honed in on what made the first so entertaining and gripping and they simply pumped more of that out. There’s a staggering amount of customization available for your soldiers. Being able to fine tune their appearance really does improve the connection you have for the fumbling digital representation of your friends, family and favourite celebrities. Their failures are made even more pronounced when it’s your best friend that ends up vaporized by a towering Sectopod’s ion cannon. The survival of your aunt through every difficult mission truly earns her a special place in your heart. And, the ability to save your creations into a character pool so you don’t have to recreate your entire entourage with every disastrous mission that ends your campaign is a life saver.

Then, of course, there is the rebalancing of classes from the original game. While Firaxis has been tweaking the numbers since release, the number of customization options for levelling your soldiers was significantly improved. In Enemy Unknown, if I had a soldier of a specific class, I almost always took the same perks each time they levelled. But in Xcom 2, I found I’d often specialize me troops depending on different builds. I wanted both a medic specialist and a hacker specialist, often substituting them out in missions based on whether I expected to run into terminals or enemies that required hacking or not.

And, of course, there were the gameplay tweaks themselves that really changed the tone of the game. Meld was dropped for timed enemy loot. New missions were introduced to put your soldiers under the timer to force you into even harder choices and compromising positions instead of rely on the slow “crawl and overwatch” strategy that dominated the first. The new stealth mechanic was also interesting in that it gave some measure of control back to the player, allowing them to negotiate where and when the initial conflicts would occur.

Finally, as the candied cherry on top, Firaxis actually implemented a very accommodating mod system. While I mentioned the expansive Long War mod earlier for Xcom: Enemy Unknown, the truly impressive feature of that collaboration was in the designers creating such a large overhaul of the game without any real access to its tools. I don’t know how they worked their digital magic but I can only assume it was time consuming. Xcom 2 wholeheartedly embraced its enthusiastic audience and opened up the design tools so almost anyone could create and publish their own modifications all supported by Steam Workshop.

And I’m so glad they did. Not only did I eagerly snatch up the Long War Studio’s releases (and am really curious to see how they manage to apply their experience with the original mod in their new game) but there was a long list of tweaks, additions and changes that I gleefully installed for multiple playthroughs. New enemy soldiers, new tile blocks and maps and even new mission types are yours for the experiencing. Not to mention additional weapons and customization options if you wanted to really get a diverse group of soldiers battling together to save the world for tyranny. There’s so much up on offer that the only downside is I have no clue what Firaxis will pull out for an expansion – if they even feel the need to release one.

Even the writing is pretty good. Which is surprising because a) it’s a video game and b) there’s such a large reliance on procedural content. Firaxis, however, manages to use Xcom 2’s narrative to both justify gameplay elements as well as communicate theme. They really wanted a sort of guerrilla war feel where humanity was against the ropes and fighting back against an oppressive regime using any means necessary. Granted, it slides into cliched sci-fi tropes but they are able to make decent use of the writing to frame the greater elements of the game into a decent enough support to see the player to the final mission. I’m not certain why, and maybe this was due to playing the Xcom Boardgame prior to Xcom 2’s release, but I felt the game elements were just barely submerged beneath the surface this time. I remember hearing in interviews that Firaxis designs their game elements in a prototype boardgame before pushing them into the digital work and I could see where a lot of that was generated. The progression through the technology tree and balancing the avatar progress doomclock were quite reminiscent of other games I have played. If I had one major criticism of the writing (and I almost always have more than one) it’s that I felt the company really missed on extracting even more thematic elements from their gameplay to really drive home the tone. I’d have liked to see just how far Xcom would go to see the alien threat expelled as well as a greater balancing of the alien’s influence on earth. I mean, the technological and social development of the world would be (and was) massively thrown out of alignment due to an alien invasion but little was actually spent addressing these ramifications other than loosely lampshading the prior game’s narrative (which was humorously but effectively explained as a simulation) and given generic motivation for the player to kill the enemy.

However, drawing some moral element to the struggle would have made it a lot better. The aliens did introduce a number of positive changes to society. Advanced medical procedures and world peace are hardly things to be blindly dismissed and I thought Dr. Tygan could have presented a more nuanced perspective given his background as a renounced Advent scientist.

Course, with the soldier customization, I can write all the little background snippets I want to add a morally grey element to the Xcom resistance.

Really, in any other year, Xcom 2 would have been my Game of the Year. It’s such a strong game and really a perfect example of a sequel done right. Not only is it a refinement – gameplay wise – of its predecessor but it also explores its world, mechanics and narrative in a wholly unexpected and interesting direction. It was a bold move by Firaxis to set the sequel as a follow-up to a failed defence of the first game and helps to establish it as separate from the original series too.

All in all, Xcom 2 is a great hit and one I expect to be playing years from now even as other titles released in 2016 fade from play and memory.

Game of the Year, 2016

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As my dear brother has mentioned, he bought me a game for my birthday back in the fall. A little game called Stardew Valley. There might have been some doubt on my part, just a wee bit of hesitation. That was until I actually started. I was pretty much hooked by the end of the first week (in game time). From then on it was always “Just 5 More Minutes – I swear” (until another hour or two had passed).

Game developed by ConcernedApe.

So, what is it about this game that I like so much? Well, I am not sure. I have never tried to analyze my taste (or lack thereof) in games. I will say it is not the graphics – the 8 byte design is not the prettiest thing out there. That said, I do like the sort of 3D movement that is lacking in things like Terraria (which I have not actually played, only watched).

I think I like the fact that there is a bit of a story in an otherwise open world. I love the farming, planning my crops for each season. I love the fact you can make things from the produce you grow. I am totally into the artisan goods. I also enjoy the cooking – though I am currently frustrated at the 7 or 8 recipes I am still missing.

I love that the game is very forgiving. As someone rather new to the gaming world (I have watched a lot but played very few), I am not always sure on how the mechanics work. Stardew Valley was definitely easy to figure out. There are very few punishments for collapsing (being knocked out) by monsters in the dungeon or staying out past your bedtime (which I still do on occasion – 2am just comes around so quickly!). However, you can either take the loss of a few items or accept the fee charged for finding your sleeping body and returned to bed. Or, if the price is too hefty, you can just start the day over by quitting before the auto-save (which only happens at night).

I like the little life stories of the other dozen villagers. They all have some problem to deal with and while it would have been nice to have more character lines on rotation I didn’t find their presence too overwhelming or demanding. If you forget to greet or gift a fellow villager it is not the end of the world. There is always another day. And if you forget to attend Leah’s art show after being specifically invited because it is the start of spring and you farm has too many demands for you to go gallivanting around town – well, no big deal. The art show will trigger when you get to town some afternoon between 3 and 5pm. I like that. I like that I want miss out on the few major scenes with the characters because I became busy harvesting grapes in my greenhouse and then transferring them to kegs to make wine.

I have also grown to love the varied aspects within the game. I was not surprised when I discovered I liked growing crops and raising animals. I was a little more surprised to discover that I actually like crawling through the mines, slaying monsters and mining ores. I was worried the combat would be too complicated. But it wasn’t. Certainly I don’t like being knocked out in the mines. But since you only lose some money and a few items it is not quite the end of the world. That said, I still try my very best never to get that low on health.

Foraging was a natural fit for me. I like the way there are different things to collect in the different seasons. And who doesn’t love free money? Besides, when you are just starting out and cannot afford to have a very large farm foraging is an easy way to spend the day.

Fishing has proven a challenge for me. For a long time I ignored, much like I ignored the social aspect of the game. Until I realized that to complete various tasks (mostly achievements) I would need to break down and learn to use my bait and tackle. Still, I am four years into my farm and I am still 1 fish away from completing the community centre. One, one day I will catch that elusive tilapia. Also, I have yet to fill up my heart bars with all the villagers. Though I am getting closer and I did manage to snag me a husband from the pool of eligible bachelors.

Map-o-the-valley

The arcade games are yet another aspect I am going to have to investigate if I want to grind out another achievement, but it is low on my list of things to do. Interestingly, I found a small side quest in my third year on the farm that had me completely various tasks around town with a mysterious key as my reward. So, while it is mostly an open farming simulator game, there is a nice balance of other activities to keep me engaged. And the thought of Grandfather coming to judge my progress certainly worked to provide a time pressure at the start of game. One that I still haven’t entirely shaken.

While there is always room to improve things (like more and varied dialogue in the second year), I think Stardew Valley is a fantastic game. It certainly has me addicted and always saying “Yup, I will do that after I finish just one more day.”

Stardew Valley is my pick for Game of the Year, 2016!

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The Farce Is With Me and I Am the Farce

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So in what is likely going to be a year tradition now, I have seen Disney’s new Star Wars’s Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. Now I get to tell you all about it.

Only, I don’t think I will. I feel like most people will already have their minds made up about Rogue One, regardless of if they have seen it or not. We’re at a crossroads, if you will. Or perhaps it is a turning point. Maybe it is a precipice – hell if I can tell. All I know is that either you agree with me or not. I simply suspect that actually seeing the movie is irrelevant to the discussion.

In the name of simplicity, I’ll just give my feelings now in the first 200 words: I think Rogue One is an unfortunate mess of two conflicting tones and concepts that lurches between them through haphazard editing and an divisive vision. To throw it a bone, it’s better than the prequels. To put it in perspective, it’s worse than the originals.

Accessed from http://popwrapped.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/image153.jpg

Rogue One and Star Wars now belong to Disney, I suppose. All hail the almighty mouse.

And having seen two modern “modern Star Wars” I don’t think this refrain is apt to be changed at this point. I believe this comes down in large part due to intent. There was a real desire to create with the first Star Wars: to break molds and challenge conventions. The series now, however, has shuffled back to one of a position of enshrinement. People are trying to preserve like a crusty curator hoping to pass off old relics with a little bit of spit shine and dusting. But they’re still aged pieces, no matter how shiny and gilded you make their new frames. You might touch up a few cracks in the canvas. Maybe do a touch of restoration to bring back some of the faded colour. But you’re not creating anymore. You’re pining. Unfortunately, time moves on and for all the hard work done it is only so much futile resistance against the endless march. There’s a certain bit of sadness to it, I feel, if you get past all the agonising issues.

Not that my grumpy feelings on the matter amount to anything anyway. It’ll smash box offices. People will laud it’s achievements as being revolutionary. And then the next Star Wars will release next year and Rogue One will be pushed to the side. Just like that. I wonder if people will even remember it as simply a reproduction. I wonder if they’ll remember it at all.

I suspect they won’t.

And I find myself pausing and looking back at the state of affairs. How did we get here? I remember when I was a child and the original series was being re-released to theatres. Oh the furore over the special editions. I had seen the originals, of course. I wasn’t alive when they were released. I am not that ancient. But my parents had been and they’d enjoyed it. So they eagerly bundled me up, enthusiastic to relive the excitement with their child. Course, the special releases were quite special. There’s been far too many words devoted to what happened there. But they were successful and that bled into the prequel trilogy. And there’s definitely been far too many words devoted to sand for me to add to that discussion. But they too were successful. And now we’ve come to the third take as Disney hones in on what they love doing most: making money.

Perhaps if this phenomenon were devoted solely to Star Wars then I’d feel more inclined to rail against it. But it’s not. It’s simply another notch in a very long trend. We’re in the throes of the “cinematic universes.” I want to say this nonsense started with Lord of the Rings. It’s the very problem I’ve written about in the state of novels. Entertainment has morphed into this obsession with series – the content of the entertainment be damned. It’s less important than finding worthwhile stories, quality stories, than it is about making sure you squeeze out even more from your brand. We’re inundated with these throttling things. It’s the Stupid Hero Era where screen time is devoted more to how many laser beams you can fire per minute than on the characters being inordinately gunned down by them.

And frankly, I just can’t care. It’s not like the movies give me any reason to. The characters of Rogue One are about as interesting as any of the other endless faces propped up in these mindless flicks. In fact, the movie even goes so far as to resurrect old familiar faces in order to do the heavy lifting of emotional attachment since the work done for their new ones as as thread bare as ever. And there might be a number of wonders CGI can perform but bringing a person back from the dead still lies solely out of its purview. Though I applaud the effort nonetheless.

On some level, I can understand how we’ve come to this sorry state of affairs. We crave what we’ve previously enjoyed. We clutch to the fond memories, unwilling to give them up. But can you imagine the state of our entertainment if we had attached ourselves so fiercely to past productions as we have now? We’d be embroiled in the cinematic universe of Shakespeare, trying desperately to tie the madness of King Lear’s Fool and speculating whether he survived long enough to become Feste in the Twelfth Night XXII: Revenge of Maria Malvolio III.

And, perhaps, this is a symptom of our current copyright. At least with Shakespeare, since he lives in the public domain, revisiting the old work isn’t a problem. His plays are featured endlessly even now on stages both prestigious or pubescent. However, since anyone is allowed access to his work, there is less devotion to seeing it kept faithful. There’s been so many re-imaginings and retellings that what lies underneath is barely noticeable in the first place. 10 Things I Hate About You is about as recognizable as Taming of the Shrew as Clueless is of being Emma. Interest can still be mined from these concepts as they aren’t so much derivations but different visions. Their success or failure has no effect on the originals or their value. There exists no concern over a “brand” and maintaining the interest of said brand within the public consciousness.

Rogue One, however, is part of a brand. And it’s a very poor part indeed. It tries to maintain the same message and tone all the while directly contradicting and stumbling over the very toes of the piece it hopes to cash in on with your nostalgia. We’re not trying to see the themes and characters of Star Wars in a new light. We’re not seeing a poignant reinterpretation of a beloved story to reflect modern themes, struggles or problems. We’re seeing a tired horse trotted out with a new bridle, hopeful that most won’t see the emptiness of the act because this time it’ll hop a more colourful bar.

I don’t know if there had been an attempt to do otherwise. There are certainly moments that suggest Rogue One – at one time – existed as a darker war story to examine the more fearful elements of living beneath Star War’s fascist rule. But it’s mostly lost in drawn out action beats that are both poorly contextualized and rushed out one after the other so none have any particular weight. Much has been said about Star Wars revolutionizing the modern film by enforcing the standard of an action beat every ten minutes. What was originally conceived as a cinematic nod to the serialized adventure origins of these tales has turned into a cemented cinematic truth that has done more harm than good. I’ve made peace that any mainline Star Wars movie is going to hop from laser fight to laser fight with silly people in plastic costuming falling over. But Rogue One was their chance to get away from such empty conventions. Instead, it falls into them gleefully, hoping that the action itself will speak for the characters given so little screen time themselves. You don’t come to like Jyn and her merry band for who they are. You are meant to like them because you see them shoot lasers a lot or smack obvious space Nazis with sticks. They’re good. Their enemies are bad. It’s sad when they struggle. It’s happy when they succeed.

There’s little plot in order to tie it together. There’s little motivation for you to care. It’s a spectacle with as much flair as a fireworks display and as much meaning to it too.

So, in the end, if the latest Hollywood trend has left you feeling empty and longing for more – seeking something different to inject life into an industry more concerned with milking safe investments and enforcing tried and true structures – then you will be let down. If you solely want a spectacle to fill two hours then it’s fine. At this point it doesn’t seem to matter. Whether you like it or not will be determined long before you set foot into the theatre.

And either way we won’t care about it anywhere near as much as what it’s trying to ape in the first place.