Bands Missing From Rock Band

The Cure
Friday I’m In Love. Just Like Heaven. Love Cats… The Cure is cult, and there’s tons of classic Cure songs that I would kill to play. If you grew up in the 80s and 90s, you know what I mean!

Depeche Mode
Okay, so I’m a huge Depeche Mode fan. But really, can you imagine anybody who wouldn’t want to play Personal Jesus and Enjoy The Silence?

Genesis
Give me Congo, Mama and No Son Of Mine any day! While we’re at it, throw some of Peter Gabriel’s solo stuff in there!

Another To Do List

Looking for alternate universe with 48-hour days. Can be second hand, but must be in good condition.

Now Playing: Dead Space

If there haven’t been many blog updates in the last week, you can lay the blame squarely on the shoulders of Dead Space. In times when I normally write my posts or work on BBelief2008, I have been playing Dead Space instead. When I should have been going to bed around midnight, I kept playing Dead Space instead. It’s one of the best games I’ve experienced this year.

(The following text won’t contain any story spoilers, and no major game spoilers. But if you prefer to not know anything about the game, you might want to stop reading right here.)

Dead Space is a case study in focus and execution. There are a few novel touches (like the 3D inventory and 3D UI screens), but when you get to the bottom of it, there’s a preexisting example for every one of Dead Space’s game elements. Dismembering enemies? Soldier of Fortune 2. In-game economics and stores? System Shock 2 (and, more recently, Bioshock). Node upgrade system: Final Fantasy X/2. Resurrection monsters: Archvile from Doom 2. Zero gravity sections: Prey. And of course Doom 3 paved the way, by the way of Event Horizon.

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The Two Types of Indiana Jones Movies

I wasn’t one of those people who hated Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull when it arrived in theaters last May. It had numerous problems for sure, but I was happy to disengage the rational side of my brain and go along for the ride. Now that the movie is available on Blu-ray, I’m finding that Indy 4 is actually growing on me. Once you know where the story is going and don’t care too much about how logically the parts of the movie connect, and once you’re already prepared for the movie’s questionable parts (*cough* fridge sequence *cough*) it’s easier to appreciate the moment-to-moment action and the set pieces in Crystal Skull. And there’s some good stuff there! The “ant arena” is a pretty brilliant concept, for example. Sure, the CG ants look somewhat fake, but the scene is a great variation on the traditional creepy crawler sequences featured in all previous Indiana Jones movies. The ants are also a clever way of creating a “ring of death” around the inevitable big fist fight. The motorcycle chase is well done, as are the cemetery scenes in Peru. (Mutt’s Tarzan moment in the jungle still sucks, though; and the sword fight doesn’t feel any less tacked on.)
I was surprised to find myself going back to the movie multiple times. Not giving it undivided attention, mind you, but using it as a background distraction while working on other things. Like a certain Quake level that I have affectionately started referring to as “that one“.

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BBelief 2008 – The stage is set…

One of the challenges has actually been to not add too much detail to various areas. It’s nice that today’s computers are stretching Quake’s limits, but the composition quickly becomes too busy. If think that that first shot is stretching it. What do you think?

Rating “Cyberfilms” (Part 5)

Welcome to the final installment of Rating “Cyberfilms”! This has been a lot of fun, but it’s also turned out to be much more work that I initially expected. Mostly because the reviews kept getting increasingly longer, I guess I can’t just write a couple of paragraphs on a story. We’re finishing the series today with George R. R. Martin’s Nightflyers and H. P. Lovecraft’s Herbert West: Reanimator. To learn more about the series and to see previous reviews, read parts 1, 2, 3 and 4!

Nightflyers (George R. R. Martin)
1980
Score: A+

Robert Jaffe adopted this story into the movie of the same name. It was directed by Robert Collector and starred Catherine Mary Stewart, Michael Praed and John Standing.

She put an arm around him, stroked him, coaxed him. “The esperon will give you range,” she said. “Feel it, feel yourself grow stronger. Can you feel it? Everything’s getting clear, isn’t it? “Her voice was a reassuring drone. “Remember the danger now, remember, go find it. Look beyond the wall, tell us about it. Tell us about Royd. Was he telling the truth? Tell us. You’re good, we all know that, you can tell us.” The phrases were almost an incantation.

He shrugged off her support and sat upright by himself. “I can feel it,” he said. His eyes were suddenly clearer. “Something – my head hurts – I’m afraid!”

“Don’t be afraid,” the psipsych said. “The esperon won’t make your head hurt, it just makes you better. Nothing to fear.” She stroked his brow. “Tell us what you see.”

The telepath looked at Royd’s [holograph] with terrified little-boy eyes, and his tongue flicked across his lower lip. “He’s -”

Then his skull exploded.

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Religion, Myth and Games

As expected, Bill Maher’s new documentary Religulous is stirring up strong reactions from supporters and opponents of religion alike. I probably won’t watch this movie because it seemingly aims to prove a predetermined point: that religion is ridiculous. A more bipartisan effort might have tried understanding why people subscribe to a religion, and what the religious belief adds to their lives.

But I don’t think that a discussion of the validity of organized religion will lead to a fruitful result, anyway. As game developers, understanding why religion plays such an important part in many people’s life can help us, though! Because religion is myth. And understanding myth can help us to create games that connect with the audience on a deep emotional level.

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Rating “Cyberfilms” (Part 4)

Cyberfilms is a collection of 11 sci-fi short stories that were turned into movies at some point. Movies that, with the exception of Total Recall, I have never seen. So I cecided to review each story on their own merrits, and let you know if I could see a movie in each story. Today we have two rather well-known entries: Johnny Mnemonic and Enemy Mine. I didn’t end up liking either one too much, though To read about some stories that I did like, I suggest visiting parts 1, 2 and 3 of this series. Or wait for the weekend, when I will review the final two stories from this book. Anyway, on to this week’s reviews!

Johnny Mnemonic (William Gibson)
1981
Score: D

Johnny Mnemonic was adapted by the author and turned into the film of the same name, directed by Robert Longo, and starring Keanu Reeves, Dina Meyer and Ice-T.

Yep, that’s me giving William Gibson’s story a D. I didn’t understand it. It might be a great tale, but the density of information that Gibson crams into every sentence and description is staggering. And unfortunately, it is done in such a way that my brain can’t follow. Gibson’s writing just doesn’t create any images in my mind, and an entire action scene might be over before I even realized it. Or understand what just happened.

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BBelief 2008 – Racing Towards The Finish Line

Every level in progress reaches a point where it’s not much fun to work on anymore. It’s those dreaded last 10%, which usually consist of applying a lot of polish – and getting to all the work that the author just didn’t really want to do (but has to ). When you’re just doing the level for fun, it’s even easier to procrastinate on those areas – and eventually hit a roadblock. I hit that spot a week or two ago, and stopped working on the level for a while. For me, the breaking point was mountains.

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Rating “Cyberfilms” (Part 3)

On to part 3 of the Cyberfilms feature! This part adds two reviews that I left out from the last post, because that article was getting too long for my liking. If you haven’t done so already, I suggest reading part 1 and part 2 of the series first! You will get an introduction to the book and insight on the stories that have already been reviewed. As with the other posts, you should be aware that this article might contain spoilers for the featured stories! (Some pretty big ones for the The Forbidden review.)

Air Raid (John Varley)
1977
Score: A

Air Raid was adapted into the movie Millennium by the author. The movie was directed by Michael Anderson, and starred Kris Kristofferson, Cheryl Ladd and Daniel J. Travanti.

Ah, John Varley. I’m a big fan of his Gaea cycle, and was captivated by this short short story (12 pages) as well.

Air Raid is one of those ‘clever’ titles. The story isn’t about an air strike – there’s no approaching fighter planes, no howling sirens, no people scrambling for cover. No, Air Raid is about a group of human time travelers from the future, who come back to our time to steal the travelers of airplanes that are doomed to fatally crash. Does that make sense?

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