Wednesday, February 23, 2005  

You know, I don't normally get nostalgic for London. I hated my time there, hated the country, hated everything about it. Only a few things survive intact from that barrage of "god this place sucks", like Pizza Express, Wagamama's, the general feel of living alone with nobody to shout at you, and I really rather liked my flat. On the flipside, my life is about six hundred times better here and the Internet is twelve times faster, so I'm more than happy with getting rid of those trade-offs.

But when I heard it was snowing in London... alright, that brought back some memories. About two years and a month ago it suddenly started snowing in London. I do remember it as quite probably being the best day I ever had there. I actually raced to the Blog first to look for an entry on it, but it seems it came a few months before I started blogging in earnest (and yes, you can argue this post comes a few months after I STOPPED blogging in earnest, but please ignore the symmetry). But there are pictures, which you can see if you click the funny underlined word here.

I've seen snow before. But I hadn't seen snow in London before, and I had never seen it fall. The closest I came to both was when tiny snow droplets fall and then melt instantly on whatever they touch, which happened all too often in London and rather represented my feelings that anything that country touched turned to -- ahem. Anyway, this time it was different. The ground was tinged with white and getting whiter by the minute. But the sky... I have to say it was a sort of mesmerising sight. Just watching the snow swirl and flutter and fall was addictive. I stood by the window for an hour just watching it fall, at which point I reached for the phone, missed because I was still looking at the snow fall, found it and dialled Kavi. Conversing with him was fairly hard because both our jaws were slack and our eyes were fixed on the snow. Incidentally, he's from Bangkok and had never seen snow to begin with. He does however own a pair of snow gloves, which in the absence of seeing any action in real snow he put on whenever he ate ice cream. I have pictures of this if you don't believe me.

After finishing with Kavi, I pretty much called up everyone I ever knew (and some I didn't; wrong numbers are easy when you hack at a telephone without looking at the numbers) to incoherently babble something about snow. Oddly enough, Kavi and I were kindred spirits in our appreciation of the cold wet white stuff falling from above. Everyone else in London only bitched and moaned that cold wet white stuff was falling all over them and making them cold and wet. Despite this I mustered my unusually boundless enthusiasm to corral Reshma and Nicola into a post-work drink. Commence the really odd sight of me racing through London with a huge grin on my face looking at everything as if I was looking at it for the first time -- which was semi-true, because though I'd seen London before I hadn't seen London with a layer of white on it.

When I got home, the snow had settled into a layer less than an inch thick. This didn't dissuade me from going into the little grass verge in the carpark surrounded by rubbish huts (which people are rather fond of picnicking on -- see here for more) to play in the snow. Unfortunately, someone else got there first and razed vast tracts of snow to create a rather pathetic six-inch snowman. I swore never to so something so stupid. Instead, I went to my balcony and carved my name into the snow with my fingers, almost giving myself frostbite in the process.

A fine end to an utterly fine day.

Posted at 2:36 AM

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Tuesday, February 22, 2005  

I've been watching a lot of Alias lately. The series was recommended to me and I always thought it looked fairly interesting, so armed with every episode ever I've been watching bits and pieces for the last few months.

I have to say it really didn't start well. It's just so... stupid. They throw plot elements in and reel them back out whenever it's convenient (like Sydney's schooling, which is so half-assed). The whole Rambauldi thing is utterly retarded and really doesn't look like the sort of thing an intelligence agency should be wasting its time on. And the pacing! Good god, the pacing is so bad it's not even funny. Actually, it kinda is. There's just no sense of... anything during an episode. Urgency, tension, you name it, the first season-and-a-bit of Alias didn't have it. It really felt like they filmed the whole season as one gigantic episode, then randomly cut it into 22 bits. Where you think an episode should end on a dramatic note or an obvious bit of closure, it doesn't; where an episode shouldn't end, it does. I'm not even talking about twists or bits where you're screaming for more -- I mean some episodes close on the most astoundingly inane conversations. What makes it even more frustrating is how slowly the plot progresses. NOTHING gets resolved by the end of the first season. NOTHING. While I really like the idea of series that have one plotline running over an entire season (like 24), I HATE the idea that a single plot is so drip-fed to you that it would literally take you years to uncover if you watched them as they came out on TV. (This, incidentally, is what JJ Abrams' other show appears to be suffering from -- and as someone watching it as it comes out on TV I am praying I'm wrong on this one.)

The overriding feeling I got from watching the first season and a half of Alias was that it's like 24 for Girls. This is highlighted by the action sequences and missions almost feeling like a secondary strand to How Sydney Feels and How Sydney's Social Life Is Weird and Boo Hoo I Killed My Fiancée Because I'm An Idiot. And it's absolutely unforgiveable that she goes on missions apparently unarmed. Look, I get that kicking people looks cooler and is somehow regarded as less violent than a quick bullet to the chest, but she's a spy for god's sakes. At the very least make her look like she knows how to hold one, because at the beginning of the series she doesn't.

The only thing that makes Alias work are some rather good characters. Marshall is good if overly quirky, always good for a laugh. I like Jack Bristow a lot. And Arvin Sloane is one of the more insidious villains on TV (though again: I really hope we resolve his problem sooner rather than later). But what really makes the show work is Sydney, or more accurately, Jennifer Garner. She's awfully convincing, both in action and more surprisingly during those dumb slow Sydney Has Issues scenes. The super-emotional events of the first episode could have been laughable in the hands of a less talented actress but she really carries it well and just makes it work.

But this is the thing: Alias gets better. It gets so much better and turns into everything I thought it could be. Just past the mid-point of the second season, stuff happens. To be more accurate: In the space of one episode a rather major plot is resolved and EVERYTHING changes. Though that episode was rather abrupt -- honestly considering the magnitude of events I'd have liked to see it stretch out to two or three episodes, and they TOTALLY wasted a guest role from Rutger Hauer -- it felt like a breath of fresh air. To be more precise: It felt like they stopped, gave the show to an entirely new team with a fat new budget and a remit to fix all that was wrong in the Alias Universe. And they did.

Certain hyper-annoying characters mysteriously disappear, cool characters like Mr Sark and Weiss get more airtime, Sydney suddenly graduates from school, and things happen. She handles a gun (AND SHOOTS PEOPLE WITH IT). Scenarios become improbable, yes, but in a cool 007 I-want-to-believe sort of way (like a secret server hidden aboard a permanently airborne 747!). The budget increases tenfold, allowing for effects that are no longer laughable and cooler sets. There's tension, there's excitement. There are quite astonishing (yet believable!) twists. The Sydney Has Issues scenes are reduced to a manageable level and action takes centre stage. In short: It's become a very good show. In particular, the Emily Sloane episode in Season 2 (I say no more) was outstanding.

I'm now at the beginning of Season 3, after another staggering twist that shakes up the landscape yet again in rather interesting ways, and I really hope it can sustain this. It's still not up there with 24, but it's still very good and must-watch TV.

Posted at 4:10 AM

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Thursday, February 10, 2005  

It’s been ages since I last blogged, but I really wanted to talk about Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 2 and needed time to digest the experience. The original KOTOR was my Game of 2003, which is pretty impressive when you consider that I don’t like RPGs and I don’t play PC games ("Bio-who?"). But it did so much right, so much original, and threw in so much Star Wars goodness that it’s one of my favourite games ever now. So KOTOR 2 had a lot to live up to. And like I was when I finished the game... I’m still a little torn on KOTOR 2’s merits. It’s a fine, fine game, but there’s just too much to annoy there that leaves it out of the realm of greatness.

(Note: I will spoil like mad here)

The overriding feeling I have is that this is game needed another three to six months work to be outstanding. As it is, it's merely good -- fine for most games, but not fine for the successor to KOTOR. You can see this everywhere. The storyline starts off well, then falls apart at the end. You've got two very good, very big and very long planets in Onderon/Dxun and Nar Shaddaa and two very short recycled planets in Korriban and Dantooine (and even then they've used barely half of their original size!). And you see it when some characters have endless dialogue trees to explore while others max out instantly.

I have to speak of KOTOR 2's great good first though. The biggest plus is that in many ways it's KOTOR 1.5 -- new quests, new characters, same formula. There are cool new quests. I love the customisation you can pull off with characters. You have so many more options in combat (I love how you have unarmed specialists now). And the locales you visit are pretty damned cool.

Four things I particularly loved:

1) Jedi Potential: Training your characters to become Jedi is insane. It makes you feel a lot closer to the characters and makes you feel that you've accomplished so much more than just revealing more of their past for your amusement.
2) Splitting the Party: A lot of people hate this and I know it can really catch you unawares (ahem, Atton) but I loved it. Again, it makes you feel more in tune with your entire party because you have to make sure you know how to use all of them. I also liked thinking tactically in picking who was good for which mission.
3) Rethinking Right from Wrong: KOTOR 2 makes you rethink your whole outlook on the Force, Light versus Dark and makes you really explore what you’re doing and why. Sometimes, the obvious Light choice really isn’t the Right thing to do. Will giving a beggar 5 credits REALLY help him? Or will it just make him a target? Your character gains experience every time he achieves something —- so by solving other people’s problems, are you “stealing” experience THEY should be gaining? Are you making them weaker by helping them? You may not agree with the viewpoint, but it’s something to think about.
4) Nar Shaddaa: This planet is unreal good. It has an outstanding storyline, is packed with interesting NPCs and quests. And that's before all hell breaks loose towards the end...

Surprisingly where KOTOR 2 loses out the most for me is with the storyline. It builds slowly, deliberately and rather well in one direction... then abandons it and rushes towards an unsatisfactory conclusion. Take one of the villains, Darth Nihilus. He looks evil and foreboding. His power is on an absolutely unimaginable scale. His origins hint at a link to you. Sounds like an interesting character. But he's more underused than Darth Maul, because you're never ever told his story. In fact, you're never even told his NAME -- you just see it pop up as a quest (yes, "Defeat Darth Nihilus"). As Obsidian rushed towards the finish they no doubt cut that introductory cutscene and many others, because the closer you get to the end the more plotholes open up.

KOTOR 2 is a story of self-discovery, not a galaxy rescue mission. And it's a pity, because it could have benefited from being focused and having a point. Towards the end, I really wasn't thinking "Oh my god I'd better go stop them and avert disaster!", more "Oh so that's where the final boss is?". It just didn't drive me in the same way that KOTOR 1's did, didn't give me the same urgency or motivation.

There are also two other major things that bothered me about the story. The first is the Revan factor. Revan's fate is hinted at far too plainly in this one -- and it only serves to highlight his absence. You're basically told Revan is out there, fighting some far more important fight in the nether regions. Look, I'm sorry, but that's just bullshit. It feels less like a cliffhanger and more like a total cop-out. "I'm sorry Princess, but Revan is in another castle!"

The second is that to be honest it doesn't feel like it fits either KOTOR 1 or Star Wars in general. The worlds certainly feel like they've been scarred by war, but there are other things which don't fit. If these Sith Lords are so damned powerful, where were they in Revan's war? Korriban has long been in Star Wars canon as the ancient home of the Sith -- so what's with the "more ancient" Trayus Academy and Malachor? And how did the Jedi "keep the Republic safe for a thousand generations" when KOTOR 2 opens with me as the last Jedi? It just doesn't fit.

Still, KOTOR 2 is a good game. It's not up to the standards of the original, but it's still very much worth playing and an enjoyable enough ride. Ironically, I remember reading 1UP's review and thinking "how can more of the same only be worth an 8?", but that's what I'm thinking too. Funny how actually playing a game can change your mind on a review, huh?

Posted at 5:09 AM

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