Serene is not what I’d call it

Were I a screaming fanboy, I would be without words about this movie. I’m a fanboy of fewer words, so, naturally, I have a few to say.

The movie is *wonderful*. The silent title has to be one of the most effective titles I’ve seen yet. I was similarly moved by Hitchhiker’s because of the theme, these titles have entirely different merits. Serenity’s title is a wonderful offset for the action previous to the title (this is if I’m remembering in the correct order…). It left an impact like a well placed dramatic effect ‘effect’. As was the series, the movie is jam packed with classic quotables. “Oh God, Oh God, we’re all going to die” is only the beginning, I’m ashamed of forgetting it already, but Captain Mal has a wonderful line just following that one. All of our favorite character interplays are there.

As a side note, Simon, who had his cool moments in the series, becomes fully fledged ‘awesome’ for actions taken. Wash is still my favorite.

Joss Whedon said that series are questions, and movies are answers. In this movie we find answers to questions some of us weren’t asking, the group I went with was in great dismay about the questions not answered, and the questions *raised* by this movie, but it still answers questions. These answers were thought provoking and well presented.

I’m very sure I’m going to have more to say about this movie on subsequent viewings.

Rating: Top of Cool

Tag, your turn Finster.

Warhammer: Mark of Chaos aka More RTS Awesomeness

Oh wow… this looks beautiful.

I love Dawn of War and will be getting the Dawn of War expansions pretty soon, and if the game is as fun as these screenshots look, then this will be a GREAT game. However, we know how the screenshot thing goes, and the only problem here is that Relic is not developing this one.

Honestly though, I think RTS games are at a point now that everyone is pretty much tired of them, but with stuff like Dawn of War and Rome: Total War, the RTS is still much more than just a niche genre.

Notice of generic introduction

Greetings all.
But that would be much more formal than I normally am. Hi, solyd here, with the advent of the new MoveableType version, I’m able to join the fray here freely. So, first, a few words about myself:

I am a freelance Japanese translator. I have done some manga as part of this, it’s out there, and if you’re especially clever, you’ll find out what I’ve done. I follow anime and manga in a casual fashion, expect to see the majority of my posts on such, though I dabble in near all subjects.

The end of the Egg

Old news I know, but Super Egg Machine performed their last concert together in April. I’d suspected their breakup some time ago, but it’s still sad. Well, time to go find all the albums.

-solyd

I upgraded and all I got was this stupid weblog

I upgraded my backend to the new MovableType 3.2. It’s pretty slick, I must say. They’ve integrated some of the more popular plugins, and everything seems to be a bit more user-friendly. If you’re used to MT3 then things will look pretty familiar with this version, and there are quite a few new features. I’m still thinking about moving to WordPress, however. We’ll see how this goes.

The upgrade process itself was completely painless. Of course, this was only because my backup policy is set somewhere between paranoid and practical. That way, when I stupidly delete a config file, I don’t have to completely start from scratch.

At least I have chicken…

AFK Gamer had a link to The Leeroy Jenkins Soundboard.

And in case you have not been introduced to the World of Warcraft hilarity that is: The Leeroy Jenkins video.

Leeroy Jenkins is the funniest thing on the internet since the Star Wars Kid.

WoW Suffers from The Plague

No… newbies can sometimes be annoying, but they are not the plague that I speak of.

Apparently, WoW suffered from a virtual communicable desease, beginning with players infected by Hakkar the Soulflayer.

When infected adventurers returned to town at the end of their quest, they inadvertently passed along the Corrupted Blood infection to those nearby. In short order, the plague ravaged the population. Soon entire cities fell victim to the artificial disease. And while 280 damage points may be easy for a level-58 Night Elf warrior to contend with, it’s enough to kill a lower-level player in seconds.

Nasty, but ultimately very cool. This was an inadvertant bug, but Blizzard may have serendipitously discovered a very cool MMORPG feature. In fact, this is the kind of thing that I have craved from an MMORPG. A seemingly simple act, such as getting cursed by a dungeon boss, and having it cause some sort of lasting effect on the rest of the game world.

Now, granted, 280 points of damage to a poor level 5 hunter is a little extreme. But there’s no reason Blizzard couldn’t level limit these kinds of things. Maybe you get infected, and it requires people to gather some rare plant extract from the far reaches. Entire sub-economies based on the availability of medicines would crop up. If someone got infected, their entire guild may become infected and caught up in some kind of sidequest. I don’t know, this kind of gameplay would be really fun for me, kind of like the plague in Morrowind. I’m sure others would be really frustrated by this kind of thing, but if there were some kind of reward, like having better stats after being cured or something.

I don’t know.

Okay okay okay…

If this were real, it would make me want to buy a Revolution right away.

Question for the masses

If anyone still reads my modest little blog here:

How much time should a game reviewer spend on a game before he can justifiably review it? Some of you may remember the debacle at Gamespot where someone reviewed a primaily online multiplayer game, but only logged 30 minutes of time on the developers’ servers. In the case of a single-player game, is it necessary for a game reviewer to play all the way through the main story and finish all of the side quests?

Nintendo Controllers blah blah blah

I haven’t really kept up with the gaming blog community in the past month. Haven’t had a lot of time. Big news? Yeah. Big news that will directly affect me in the near future? Nope.

It’s great that Nintendo finally released their innovative controller. Fantastic. I won’t care until I know prices and the console has approached something close to being on the market.

I more or less have decided I’m not buying an Xbox 360 for AT LEAST a year, unless the “home-brew” (a euphemism for emulation and cracking) community manages to crack the Xbox 360 quickly and effectively. I somehow doubt that. Rumors are that the 360 will include some scheme for detecting case intrusions, and then cause the console to never power up without repair service. I have no reliable source to back that up, but the rumor is out there, nevertheless.

PS3? As sexy as Metal Gear Solid 4 looks, I probably won’t be getting a PS3 when it’s released, either. I can only afford to buy so many consoles this generation, and I won’t be allocating a next-gen console purchase to the console which has the least attractive launch lineup. Granted, we are at least 6 months from a PS3 launch, but the Xbox 360’s launch lineup is FAR more attractive to me.

The big question mark right now is Nintendo. Are they going to sneak into the next-gen market with a $200 console, or will they be closer to MS and Sony as far as pricing? I don’t know. I can tell you this, if the Nintendo console is MILDLY affordable, I’m buying it on release day. Primarily because I don’t have a Gamecube and I will then gain access to the Gamecube’s quality-filled game catalog.

So yeah. There you go.