I was planning on savoring the two episodes for Half Life 2, but ended up plowing through them pretty quickly. Which makes sense, both because they're shorter than the main game and because they share the same compelling design and sense of constant forward momentum. There's never a moment of RPG-ish free-roaming, where you can go wherever you want and tackle goals in your own order. Nope: you're always running from something, or racing to save someone, or fighting to stay alive one way or another. It'd be an exhausting way to live, but it's an exciting way to game.
I was really impressed with the episodes. In some ways, I like them even more than the main campaign of HL2. The biggest improvement is the cooperative AI gameplay. For most of the main campaign, you are totally on your own. You get to play with Antlion slaves for a while, which is entertaining, and towards the end you start leading squads of resistance fighters. I loved the idea of squad-based combat, but sadly the AI wasn't very sharp... they did great with a large number of low-level threats, like when you face a swarm of drones or a rival squad of Combine soldiers, but if, say, a sniper was pinning down an alleyway, and you told them to stay in shelter, then you crept carefully down the alleyway to take out the sniper, the squad would get bored and follow you, only to get popped one by one.
Here, for large chunks of the episodes, you fight alongside Alex. This is a Very Good Thing, for multiple reasons. First, she's gorgeous. I don't just mean visually appealing; the programmers have done a stunning job at modeling her movements. They're not only fluid, which is kind of the holy grail for character animation, but they're also unique and interesting. Way back in the main campaign, I remember being pleasantly stunned when watching her walk away, then pivot and continue walking backwards while talking to you. She's also a climber, regularly scrambling up ladders or rocks. When she gets into a car, she grabs the frame and then swings herself into the seat. Again, all this is done in-game in real time, not in some cut-scene. My hat is off.
MINI SPOILERS
Besides the enjoyment of watching your companion, though, it's a ton of fun from a gameplay perspective. There's a great section in one of the episodes where you're in a pitch-black underground tunnel. You need to use your flashlight to see anything. The flashlight can only stay on for about twenty seconds before it runs out of juice, at which time you need to turn it off and let it recharge, keeping you in the dark for seconds more. Eventually, you stumble across hordes of zombies. Alex is armed, but she doesn't have a flashlight. Therefore, you need to shine your light on the enemies for her to shoot them. They structure this brilliantly, forcing you to practice with the idea early on before you get a weapon, then leading you through fights where you could take the zombies out on your own but it's better (you save more ammo) if you let her do it, and finally a full-blown battle royale with dozens of hungry zombies coming at you in a seemingly endless wave while you're pinned down in front of an elevator.
Most of the enemies are the same as in HL2, with a few interesting additions. Some of the Combine soldiers have gotten infected by headcrabs, turning into a more dangerous form of zombie. These are a lot of fun: they're stronger and faster than the stock zombie, but in a great moment of comedy, they sometimes try to use a grenade on you. Only, they've forgotten how grenades work, so they'll hold it in their hand until it explodes. You'll want to keep your distance. We also get to see more stages in the Antlion lifecycle. Tiny, helpless grubs grow underground and are defenseless against your bullets and boots. Immature antlions can spit acid at you. Finally, there is a gigantic Antlion Guardian that's kind of like the queen bee of the colony. You only encounter one Guardian, and one is enough. Later, you run across Hunters, who may be the most difficult standard enemy: they can attack from great distances, do a lot of damage, move quickly, and have devastating close-range attacks. You also have a brief encounter with the terrifying creature that is glimpsed on the video screen near the end of HL2.
MEGA SPOILERS
The storyline is really compelling. It actually starts out with a reversal of the HL2 ending: the G-Man is repelled from his attempt to collect you, and you and Alex are saved from the destruction of the Citadel by the efforts of your Vortigon allies. You learn that the Citadel's core is about to blow, and you don't have time to escape City 17 before it does. Therefore, you and Alex head back in to the Citadel to strengthen the containment field to give extra time for you and the remaining civilians to escape.
While in the Citadel, Alex intercepts a message from Dr. Judith, the reformed double-agent member of the Resistance. Judith is attacked and apparently killed on screen, while trying to transmit a set of coordinates. You also learn that the Combine is trying to send some sort of message through the portal swirling above the Citadel. It appears that they're trying to re-establish a link that would allow more reinforcements to cross over to Earth.
You secure the containment field and escape the Citadel. There's a hilarious segment where Dr. Kleinar appears on the Combine transmission screens, warning civilians to flee the city, advising them that the Combine suppression field has been shut down, and urging people to do their part and start procreating. You fight your way towards the train station, where you run into Barney, who is leading a rear guard of citizens. You provide cover for everyone to escape the city, then you and Alex take the last train out of City 17. You watch the Citadel explode, which seems to send shockwaves through the fabric of reality. The train crashes and Episode 1 ends in an epic cliffhanger.
Episode 2 sees you waking up in the wreckage of the train. You and Alex see that the Citadel has vanished, but the portal in the sky remains. (I have to say, the sight of the valley where the Citadel used to be is one of the most gorgeous scenes I've seen in any video game, including Oblivion.) Alex contacts White Forest, the resistance's base, where her father and Dr. Kleinar are. Also there is a new character, Dr. Magnesun, a pompous administrator from Black Mesa. When they learn about the transmission that Alex intercepted, they urge the importance of you immediately coming to White Forest. The transmission appears to be some sort of code used to establish the portal, and with that information, they should be able to shut the portal down and re-establish Earth's independence.
In a jaw-droppingly painful scene, Alex is stabbed through the back by a Hunter. (I initially mistook the Hunter for Dog. Whoops!) The Vortigons stabilize Alex's condition, but she is still critically wounded. You travel with a Vortigon into the Antlion colony to retrieve a substance that can save her life.
After a lot of effort, you eventually retrieve the substance. While the Vortigons are restoring Alex, time freezes, and you are revisited by the G-Man. He gives the longest exposition to date, both explaining more about his purpose and making himself seem even more mysterious. He instructs the unconscious Alex to deliver a message to her father: "Prepare for unforeseen consequences." You shift back to reality as Alex comes back to life. She seems weak, and for the rest of the episode, my heart would sink a little every time I saw her: bruised face, and two ugly-looking bloodstains on the back of her jacket where the Hunter stabbed her.
You resume your journey towards White Forest. Along the way, you have an incredibly creepy experience in the basement of an abandoned farmhouse: I forget the name of the creature you encounter, but I think it's called something like Ambassador or Agent. (Update: I just looked it up, they're called Advisors.) It looks a little bit like a giant, floating, cloth-wrapped grub. What's terrifying is that it takes control of you and all other humans, leaving you unable to move, although you can still look around. Its small, mechanical hands can hold a victim in place while a short sensory tentacle stabs into their throat and annihilates the brainstem. This one is weakened, and the two of you manage a fortunate escape.
You help out other Resistance fighters on your journey, reunite with Dog, and finally arrive in White Forest. Dr. Magnesun is as insufferable in person as on the video screen: he is obsessed with building his rocket, and believes that everyone else is incompetent and lazy. The other main characters suffer him more or less gracefully. You have a chat with Dr. Vance, who is disturbed by Alex's message: "Prepare for unforeseen consequences." Outside of Alex's hearing, he reveals that he knows the G-Man, and is conflicted about how the G-Man has saved his daughter only to use her as a pawn. You also get the feeling that Dr. Vance wouldn't mind having you for a son-in-law.
The three scientists review Judith's transmission. It proves to be the coordinates of a particular ship that makes them all very excited: it was developed by Aperture (hooray for the Portal reference!) and was believed lost forever. They are divided on what to do about it: Dr. Kleinar wants to use it as a weapon to help defeat the Combine, while Dr. Vance is emphatic that it is too dangerous, too much like the experiment at Black Mesa where everything went wrong, and should never be used. They table the discussion while Dr. Magnesun prepares the rocket for launch. Multiple attacks occur as launch time approaches. You manage to beat back each one.
One of those attacks was one of the most frustrating and difficult experiences I've had in any game. A seemingly endless wave of Striders, each guarded by Hunters, storms into the valley. This would be difficult enough if you fought them the standard way, with a rocket. Instead, the game has you use an entirely different method: use the gravity gun to grab a special sticky bomb, launch it up at the Strider, then detonate it with another weapon. If that's all that was involved, it would still be incredibly difficult. To make matters worse, the Hunters can destroy the bomb while you're holding it, or in mid-air, or once it's on the Hunter. And you can't stock up on the bombs: you can only grab one at a time, from a few specific locations on the map, which may be far from where your particular Strider is.
I swore a lot during this section, and eventually dropped down into Easy mode. Even in Easy, I probably used Quick Save and Quick Load more often in this segment than in the entire rest of Episode 2. It was not fun at all.
Still, once you're done with that, you're treated to some great, unbroken story. You have the honor of pressing the switch that launches the rocket. It gets off fine, and as everyone had hoped, the transmission it broadcasts closes the portal in the sky. There is much rejoicing: the Combine forces on Earth are now isolated, and the Resistance can start taking them down without worrying about an endless replenishment. With that major threat out of the way, Alex and you volunteer to go and rescue Judith. Dr. Vance repeats his warning that the ship she was tracking must be destroyed, not used. The episode is obviously winding down, and for a few minutes it looks like this might be the first-ever HalfLife game that doesn't end with a cliffhanger.
Until the Advisors show up. Two of them appear, seemingly out of nowhere, with no early-warning reality ripples. They incapacitate you, Alex, and Dr. Vance. The elder doctor is killed in front of Alex's screaming face; they sob out final words of love for each other. Alex begins crying out in terror as they advance on you. Suddenly, Dog bounds into the room and savagely attacks them. The spell is broken and you fall to the floor. The screen fades to black as you listen to Alex's sobs as she weeps over her dead father.
Roll credits!
END SPOILERS
Man... the episodes were great! Terrific continuation of the story, and really fun gameplay as well. I said this in my original post, but what I like most about the HL series is its variety. None of the battles in the episodes felt exactly like the battles in HL2. There's always something different and interesting going on tactically. You need to think and adapt to survive.
The episodes also made me kind of wish that I had played the expansions for the original HL. I saw the boxes for Blue Shift and Opposing Forces, but never tried either one... I think I was in Linux-only mode when those came out. If those episodes were comparable to these, then I'm probably missing out on a lot of the HL universe's story. I wonder if these might explain more of the stuff that confuses me, like when and why the Vortigons joined the Resistance, or exactly how the Combine is related to the aliens from Xen that you battled in HL1.
I'm also very curious where things will go from here. I expect that we'll get another Episode... it feels like there are too many loose plot threads to carry over to a stand-alone HalfLife 3. I can imagine one final game that wraps up the storylines with Judith and the ship. Or maybe just takes you to the ship, where HalfLife 3 could start up. Eh... it's all speculation. I expect it will be good, though, whatever form it takes.
Showing posts with label half life. Show all posts
Showing posts with label half life. Show all posts
Sunday, October 25, 2009
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
Squared
I immediately jumped on Portal once I bought the Orange Box, but it didn't take me long before I started working my way through HalfLife 2. I'm not a big FPS guy - counting HL2, you can still count all FPS action games I've played on the fingers of one hand - but I am a fan of Half Life, and it seemed long overdue to return to the world.
I think I first encountered HalfLife in the summer of 1999, after graduating from high school but before starting at college. I can't remember now exactly what made me pick it up. I've far and away been much more interested in RPG and strategy games than action games, but I think the torrent of praise I was hearing for HL grew too big to ignore. If I remember correctly, it won pretty much every single "Game of the Year" award there was when it came out.
For a while I'd held the iD games of Doom and Quake in contempt as convenient whipping boys. It helps that I'd never played either one... the subject matter made them pretty much off limits to me, but even beyond that, the reputation they've had is amazing graphics with minimal plot and reflex-based gameplay. I prided myself on having more intellectual aspirations in my gaming. In contrast, while HL was still definitely an action game, it had won kudos for its storytelling and puzzle aspects.
So I started playing Half Life. And kept going, and going, and going. I went off to college, put gaming on the back shelf for a while as I got my academic sea legs, then picked it back up again. I started to wonder when it would ever end. Not that I was eager to stop, you understand - I was amazed at the variety of the game, the way that it was constantly unfurling, growing ever bigger and more complex. I just couldn't comprehend all the work that must have gone into making a game that was this enormous.
My roommate picked it up and made it pretty far through the single-player campaign, then got bored and switched to the multiplayer portion. For a while I used my Linux partition to run a deathmatch server called Timmy's House of Sprinkles. It was a simple affair, 8 players maximum, with I think a 10-minute limit on each game, and stayed on my favorite multiplayer map, a warehouse that I liked for its small size and the constant action you got as a result. My roommate later migrated on to Counterstrike, which I never got into, but further amazed me. Valve hadn't just created a killer game: they'd built an amazing platform, and I was stunned that the volunteer-based collaborative model that had produced Linux could also create a successful, commercial-quality game like Counterstrike.
I eventually beat the single player campaign, and was well pleased. I poked around a little with various user-created modules, including a cool three-part horror game called something like "They Live." But when I switched to a LInux-only system, HalfLife was one of the casualties, and it faded away.
I'm frankly stunned that it's ten years later and I'm playing the sequel... it doesn't feel like that much time could possibly have passed. I'm also stunned that the game is five years old and still looks amazing.
The original HL was revolutionary for its time, but I think that the industry has caught up. To some extent, you were being radical if you even included any intimations of story in a FPS game before then, other than "All the bad guys are X, kill them all." HL's story was evocative, which is one of the things I like best about it. There were no videos, no cut scenes, everything happened in real-time in front of your very eyes. And so you wouldn't get the standard gaming exposition, describing what's going on and why. Instead of hearing how dire the situation was, you would see it for yourself: not only the hordes of aliens you must constantly fight off, but distantly glimpsed encounters as scientists are slaughtered, or a panicked call for help coming in over a radio. Occasionally you would encounter a particular researcher or someone who would fill you in on something a little more nuanced - "The survivors are gathering in the Lamda core, you should make your way over there." On the whole, though, HL was a textbook example of showing and not telling.
In some ways, HL2 is a step back from that austerity, though I didn't mind at all. There is far more dialog in the sequel than I remember in the first game, and more differentiated characters. Instead of two models of scientists and one model of security guard, you get really well-modeled and well-crafted characters with their own personalities, ambitions, and behavior. It's still an action-driven game, of course, but this time around you hear more from the people you're working to save.
The gameplay is a huge step up from the original, which was already a lot of fun. FPS games have a reputation for linearly improving weaponry; once you get the BFG, there's no point in using anything smaller. In HL, you had to quickly learn which weapons to use for each situation. The machine gun was best when you had a swarm of soldiers in a large room to clear out quickly; the shotgun was best if you were in tight quarters in one-on-one combat; the sniping crossbow could help if you could spot enemies from far away; grenades were tough to master but could clear a room if you got the timing right; and the crowbar was the ultimate melee weapon if you could move quickly and judge your enemy's reach. Add to this exotic weapons like the "bee gun," which could seek out enemies, and the rocket launcher, your only hope for taking down certain large enemies but something that would destroy you if you got caught in the blast.
HL2 keeps most of these weapons (except the bee gun), and adds its own. The new biological "weapon" is an antlion seed pod, which you can use to summon a swarm of obedient alien ants. However, the hands-down most impressive and most praised weapon is the Gravity Gun. This unique tool shows off Valve's vaunted physics engine, and lets you interact with the world in extremely fun, unpredictable ways.
One thing that is a little odd is the set of enemies. There are plenty of new ones, including the forces of the Combine, the alliance between collaborationist humans and the aliens that police human cities. There's also a return of many old enemies, including our friends the headcrab and ceiling tentacles, and some new aliens, such as a great and creepy "fast zombie" and a poisonous version of the headcrab. But I feel like we've lost some of the large enemies from the first game... I vaguely remember there being some larger aliens later in the first game that seem to be entirely missing here. Almost everyone you fight is roughly your size, although there is one great boss in the form of a giant antlion.
Level design! It's amazing. The city environments are cool and pretty unique for a game... it's a dystopic version of an Eastern European city, which is more varied and interesting than the white antiseptic look we got in HL1 or the standard post-apocalyptic New York-ish environment of most sci-fi games of this sort. Where the game really sold me, though, are the exteriors. In particular, you play extended sequences along a coastline, and the interplay of water, sky, sand, and grass are really quite gorgeous. Some levels are just awe-inspiring. Ravenholm is fantastic, a demented Transylvanian landscape filled with spooky atmosphere, environmental puzzles (and weapons), and a great mixture of free roaming exploration and more standard goal-driven progression. Finally, the Citadel at the end of the game is jaw-dropping, a masterpiece of cool design.
On the whole, I think HL2 is a bit shorter than HL1, but still plenty long enough. I've also played through the Lost Coast, an entertaining tech demo, and have just started on Episode 1. I am a little curious where and how they will make this franchise go, but they have so much going for them that they shouldn't have much trouble.
I think I first encountered HalfLife in the summer of 1999, after graduating from high school but before starting at college. I can't remember now exactly what made me pick it up. I've far and away been much more interested in RPG and strategy games than action games, but I think the torrent of praise I was hearing for HL grew too big to ignore. If I remember correctly, it won pretty much every single "Game of the Year" award there was when it came out.
For a while I'd held the iD games of Doom and Quake in contempt as convenient whipping boys. It helps that I'd never played either one... the subject matter made them pretty much off limits to me, but even beyond that, the reputation they've had is amazing graphics with minimal plot and reflex-based gameplay. I prided myself on having more intellectual aspirations in my gaming. In contrast, while HL was still definitely an action game, it had won kudos for its storytelling and puzzle aspects.
So I started playing Half Life. And kept going, and going, and going. I went off to college, put gaming on the back shelf for a while as I got my academic sea legs, then picked it back up again. I started to wonder when it would ever end. Not that I was eager to stop, you understand - I was amazed at the variety of the game, the way that it was constantly unfurling, growing ever bigger and more complex. I just couldn't comprehend all the work that must have gone into making a game that was this enormous.
My roommate picked it up and made it pretty far through the single-player campaign, then got bored and switched to the multiplayer portion. For a while I used my Linux partition to run a deathmatch server called Timmy's House of Sprinkles. It was a simple affair, 8 players maximum, with I think a 10-minute limit on each game, and stayed on my favorite multiplayer map, a warehouse that I liked for its small size and the constant action you got as a result. My roommate later migrated on to Counterstrike, which I never got into, but further amazed me. Valve hadn't just created a killer game: they'd built an amazing platform, and I was stunned that the volunteer-based collaborative model that had produced Linux could also create a successful, commercial-quality game like Counterstrike.
I eventually beat the single player campaign, and was well pleased. I poked around a little with various user-created modules, including a cool three-part horror game called something like "They Live." But when I switched to a LInux-only system, HalfLife was one of the casualties, and it faded away.
I'm frankly stunned that it's ten years later and I'm playing the sequel... it doesn't feel like that much time could possibly have passed. I'm also stunned that the game is five years old and still looks amazing.
The original HL was revolutionary for its time, but I think that the industry has caught up. To some extent, you were being radical if you even included any intimations of story in a FPS game before then, other than "All the bad guys are X, kill them all." HL's story was evocative, which is one of the things I like best about it. There were no videos, no cut scenes, everything happened in real-time in front of your very eyes. And so you wouldn't get the standard gaming exposition, describing what's going on and why. Instead of hearing how dire the situation was, you would see it for yourself: not only the hordes of aliens you must constantly fight off, but distantly glimpsed encounters as scientists are slaughtered, or a panicked call for help coming in over a radio. Occasionally you would encounter a particular researcher or someone who would fill you in on something a little more nuanced - "The survivors are gathering in the Lamda core, you should make your way over there." On the whole, though, HL was a textbook example of showing and not telling.
In some ways, HL2 is a step back from that austerity, though I didn't mind at all. There is far more dialog in the sequel than I remember in the first game, and more differentiated characters. Instead of two models of scientists and one model of security guard, you get really well-modeled and well-crafted characters with their own personalities, ambitions, and behavior. It's still an action-driven game, of course, but this time around you hear more from the people you're working to save.
The gameplay is a huge step up from the original, which was already a lot of fun. FPS games have a reputation for linearly improving weaponry; once you get the BFG, there's no point in using anything smaller. In HL, you had to quickly learn which weapons to use for each situation. The machine gun was best when you had a swarm of soldiers in a large room to clear out quickly; the shotgun was best if you were in tight quarters in one-on-one combat; the sniping crossbow could help if you could spot enemies from far away; grenades were tough to master but could clear a room if you got the timing right; and the crowbar was the ultimate melee weapon if you could move quickly and judge your enemy's reach. Add to this exotic weapons like the "bee gun," which could seek out enemies, and the rocket launcher, your only hope for taking down certain large enemies but something that would destroy you if you got caught in the blast.
HL2 keeps most of these weapons (except the bee gun), and adds its own. The new biological "weapon" is an antlion seed pod, which you can use to summon a swarm of obedient alien ants. However, the hands-down most impressive and most praised weapon is the Gravity Gun. This unique tool shows off Valve's vaunted physics engine, and lets you interact with the world in extremely fun, unpredictable ways.
One thing that is a little odd is the set of enemies. There are plenty of new ones, including the forces of the Combine, the alliance between collaborationist humans and the aliens that police human cities. There's also a return of many old enemies, including our friends the headcrab and ceiling tentacles, and some new aliens, such as a great and creepy "fast zombie" and a poisonous version of the headcrab. But I feel like we've lost some of the large enemies from the first game... I vaguely remember there being some larger aliens later in the first game that seem to be entirely missing here. Almost everyone you fight is roughly your size, although there is one great boss in the form of a giant antlion.
Level design! It's amazing. The city environments are cool and pretty unique for a game... it's a dystopic version of an Eastern European city, which is more varied and interesting than the white antiseptic look we got in HL1 or the standard post-apocalyptic New York-ish environment of most sci-fi games of this sort. Where the game really sold me, though, are the exteriors. In particular, you play extended sequences along a coastline, and the interplay of water, sky, sand, and grass are really quite gorgeous. Some levels are just awe-inspiring. Ravenholm is fantastic, a demented Transylvanian landscape filled with spooky atmosphere, environmental puzzles (and weapons), and a great mixture of free roaming exploration and more standard goal-driven progression. Finally, the Citadel at the end of the game is jaw-dropping, a masterpiece of cool design.
On the whole, I think HL2 is a bit shorter than HL1, but still plenty long enough. I've also played through the Lost Coast, an entertaining tech demo, and have just started on Episode 1. I am a little curious where and how they will make this franchise go, but they have so much going for them that they shouldn't have much trouble.
Monday, September 28, 2009
September Cavalcade of Whimsy
Miscellaneous thoughts. Assume a "mini spoilers" heading under each category.
NEW SEASON OF HOUSE
I LOVED the ending of last season. From checking reviews and such afterwards, I found that I was in the minority, but I thought it was amazing. In my opinion, House's best moments are the shows that mainly ignore the body and focus on the mind: anything that deals with hallucination, memory, reality, or whatever, is generally an order of magnitude cooler than the (still decent) procedural shows that make up the bulk of each season.
Which is why I was so thrilled at how last season ended. Sending House to an insane asylum? The possibilities seem endless! The show's creators have shown a huge willingness before to radically shake up the show's structure and keep it from growing stale. I expected that House would eventually return to the hospital - they can't change the basic premise of the show, after all - but I figured we'd get a good four to six episodes of House's recovery in the asylum, probably intercut with his team back home trying to make its way without him (or, possibly, by consulting with a raving lunatic over the phone - even better!). I was a little bummed when I realized that we'd only get the equivalent of two episodes in the asylum, and of that, less than five minutes of House actively being crazy.
Once I got over my disappointment, though, I thought it was a good episode. They got off to a bang by playing "No Surprises" over the opening credits. I would have thought that I'd howl with rage if they ever touched "Teardop," but they lucked out and picked one of the few bands who I deem worthy to succeed Massive Attack. I'm curious if this was a special one-time thing or not... I kind of imagine that we'll be back to the standard opening for the rest of the season. I'll see soon.
The new characters were good. It's a tough balancing act... you want to make them complex enough to be interesting, but at the same time, you have less than two hours in which to do everything you will ever do with them. The overall structure of the premiere really felt like a benign version of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest... their Nurse Ratchet is infinitely nicer, of course, but still, you have House as the generally rebellious person who's basically sane and superior to the other inmates, a staff who opposes him, and then an assortment of colorful but ultimately harmless supporting characters.
Random note: I enjoyed House's reaction to the piano in the common room. After the show, I was wondering why House didn't play the piano for the talent show (other than the obvious reason that he didn't want to be in the talent show). After all, he's really good. Then it struck me: I don't think we're EVER seen House play the piano for another person. He has one in his apartment, and it's clearly important to him, but he never shares it with anyone, not even Wilson. I thought that was really sad. Having a gift for music, and keeping it all to yourself, seems... well, maybe not pointless, but like you're depriving both yourself and the world of something precious.
Anyways. All in all, it was good. I still would have enjoyed seeing an edgier and more drawn-out asylum sequence, but for what it was, they did a good job. My biggest concern now is that House will be too "cured." After all, the entire show after the first couple of minutes isn't about making House sane, it's about making him into a good human being. And good human beings are a wonderful thing to become, but they make for lousy television.
DOLLHOUSE
Boy, did this one ever sneak up past my radar. I hadn't realized that it was starting so soon. First of all: HOORAY! I was half afraid that Fox would change their mind and yank it after all. Secondly: What the hell? (Skip this if you haven't seen the unaired final episode from Season 1.) When I first saw that Season 2, Episode 1 was available, my immediate thought was, "Oh, this will probably just be the unaired episode. I'll just verify that, and then get ready to keep watching next week when they start the real Season 2." Nope! It's a totally new episode - and, it follows the aired finale, not the DVD bombshell.
So, again: what the hell? Mainly, I'm curious if we've gotten a sneak peak into the future continuity of the series, OR if that was intended as a non-canon exercise. If it's the first case, then fine, that works... they can drop in the reboot any time the show gets stuck in a rut and switch over to an awesome new story. The only downside is that it makes things a bit anti-climactic, since we know what's coming; and, if they try to work any of that plot thread into the main story line, we know how helpless they are to prevent it from happening.
If it's not canon, then I just have to say "Boo!" Shame on Whedon for getting my hopes up. But in that case, I'd also have to agree that Fox absolutely did the right thing in deciding not to show the episode, which stunned me at the time.
That aside: I enjoyed the opener. Topher is now solidly my favorite character. It was kinda cool to see a mini BG reunion when Lee and Helo fought. (Those actors must know that they will probably never outgrow those characters - I really hope they're OK with it.) The nested engagement thing was pretty cool... it does seem a little weird and petty that Helo would have used Echo like that to chase down an arms dealer, especially when his own plan obviously causes him so much pain. With Echo's skills, there are plenty of other ways he could have brought him in. That said, what makes sense isn't always what's dramatically satisfying, and I'm glad they did it the way they did.
What else... oh, everything was good. Whiskey coming to terms with her identity, the new head of security settling into his role, even the tiny moments we got with the other Actives.
T-MOBILE
Does anyone have them? What do you think? My contract with AT&T is up, and I'm considering jumping. I've wanted to for a while... T-Mobile has a great reputation for being a reasonable carrier to work with, and I like their plans more than the other carriers'. They also have some phones I'm interested in - originally the Android line, but now I'm salivating at the thought of an N900. I skipped T-Mobile when I was first looking at phones two years ago because at the time they didn't advertise coverage at my apartment; it looks like they've since fixed that, and I'm now able to make calls fine from there.
The main things I'm curious about is how good their 3G network is, and how good their customer service is. Honestly, I don't deal with customer service and hope not to, so I hope that they just set things up nicely and don't make mistakes.
PORTAL
I bought the Orange Box! I see why everyone's so excited about Portal! I think it's possibly the best designed game I've ever played... that's probably overly enthusiastic, so wait until I'm more than a week removed from the amazing finale for a more measured judgment. Still, though: I'm hard pressed to think of another game that's just so tightly constructed, with such a consistently high level of quality. I feel like every single minute that I was playing that game, I was doing something awesome. There was no dumb repetition, no leveling up, no clearing the fourth identical room of bad people. Just relentlessly challenging and varied puzzles, a really subtle and dark side plot that eventually overwhelms the main storyline, and the most amazing villain I've come across for a while.
There's a ton I could write about Portal. Right now I'll confine myself to one thing: the computer is identical to and nothing like SHODAN. Comparing it to SHODAN would be one of the highest compliments possible - SHODAN is in the running for best villain EVER. If you list their qualities, they sound identical: "Insane computer with a female voice encourages a human to progress through a futuristic environment and then seeks to exterminate them." But still, everything about them feels completely different. SHODAN is... like an evil goddess, I guess. She's all-powerful, all-knowing, She is supremely confident in her own superiority, and believes that the insect-like mass of humanity are beneath her notice. GLaDOS, on the other hand, is endlessly quirky. She's a little insecure, while still being supremely powerful. She wants to be trusted, even when she admits that she's fundamentally dishonest yet. ("Have I lied to you yet? I mean, in this room?") She steers you to your doom while speaking words of encouragement. Ultimately, GLaDOS is more insane, or maybe just a different kind of insane... I guess you could simplify a little and say that GLaDOS is psychotic and SHODAN is a psychopath.
Either way, they're both fun! GLaDOS is way funnier. SHODAN is way scarier.
HALF LIFE 2
Did I mention that I got the Orange Box? I'm working my way through HL2 now. It's a great deal of fun. It blows my mind that I was playing Half Life 1 exactly ten years ago. That feels like forever! It's also pretty incredible that HL2 has been out for five years; the graphics still look top-notch, at least to my eyes. (Granted, I hardly ever play FPS games and never have a top-of-the-line graphics card.)
This game is reminding me what I loved so much about HL1. It's an action game, sure, but it has a plot, and it's at least as much about solving puzzles as about shooting big guns. HL2 adds some amazing environments to the mix. Not that HL1 was any slouch in that department - I was blown away at the time by just how huge the game was, and how the vast underground environments were broken up with occasional jaunts to the surface and that final weird coda in Xen - but HL2 takes it to another level. I've already experienced a war-torn Eastern European city, a wonderfully creepy horror-movie-style city filled with pseudo-undead, and a gorgeous seaside road that reminds me of California's coastal Highway 1. I'm in awe of the designers who came up with all this.
OTHER THINGS I'M LOOKING FORWARD TO
Dexter. I was a bit underwhelmed by the third season - still, how could you possibly top the first two? I'll keep the third season in mind this time around and hopefully have my expectations surpassed.
Dragon Age. A Bioware RPG is the only game, other than Civilization, for which I will upgrade my PC. DA is coming out for all platforms, and at first I was thinking I might skip the upgrade and just grab the PS3 version. Then I remembered - oh, yeah, mods! Baldur's Gate 2 is one of the most perfect games I've ever played, and it exceeded perfection thanks to the amazing mods people put out for it. I never really got into NWN - never even beat the main game, and didn't play any expansion, although I hear that the expansions are better. Anyways. I've deliberately been avoiding reading about DA, but now that we're about 6 weeks out, I'm finally letting myself dive into the lore a bit. It looks really promising. I doubt I'll buy it on launch (unless there are REALLY GOOD pre-order specials), but it's the sort of thing where I expect that reviews will be good, and I'll pick it up soon after.
Venture Brothers. For some reason I thought we had to wait until November. But nope, it starts in October! Hooray! Just about three weeks to go. I have a friend who's really into this show, and she's been re-watching them to try and figure out the third season. There's a plot twist at the end which doesn't seem to make much sense. It'll be interesting to see if the creators address this head-on, sweep it under the rug, or pull one of their great switcheroos that changes everything.
That'll do for now, though there's still plenty more to come. Whee!
NEW SEASON OF HOUSE
I LOVED the ending of last season. From checking reviews and such afterwards, I found that I was in the minority, but I thought it was amazing. In my opinion, House's best moments are the shows that mainly ignore the body and focus on the mind: anything that deals with hallucination, memory, reality, or whatever, is generally an order of magnitude cooler than the (still decent) procedural shows that make up the bulk of each season.
Which is why I was so thrilled at how last season ended. Sending House to an insane asylum? The possibilities seem endless! The show's creators have shown a huge willingness before to radically shake up the show's structure and keep it from growing stale. I expected that House would eventually return to the hospital - they can't change the basic premise of the show, after all - but I figured we'd get a good four to six episodes of House's recovery in the asylum, probably intercut with his team back home trying to make its way without him (or, possibly, by consulting with a raving lunatic over the phone - even better!). I was a little bummed when I realized that we'd only get the equivalent of two episodes in the asylum, and of that, less than five minutes of House actively being crazy.
Once I got over my disappointment, though, I thought it was a good episode. They got off to a bang by playing "No Surprises" over the opening credits. I would have thought that I'd howl with rage if they ever touched "Teardop," but they lucked out and picked one of the few bands who I deem worthy to succeed Massive Attack. I'm curious if this was a special one-time thing or not... I kind of imagine that we'll be back to the standard opening for the rest of the season. I'll see soon.
The new characters were good. It's a tough balancing act... you want to make them complex enough to be interesting, but at the same time, you have less than two hours in which to do everything you will ever do with them. The overall structure of the premiere really felt like a benign version of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest... their Nurse Ratchet is infinitely nicer, of course, but still, you have House as the generally rebellious person who's basically sane and superior to the other inmates, a staff who opposes him, and then an assortment of colorful but ultimately harmless supporting characters.
Random note: I enjoyed House's reaction to the piano in the common room. After the show, I was wondering why House didn't play the piano for the talent show (other than the obvious reason that he didn't want to be in the talent show). After all, he's really good. Then it struck me: I don't think we're EVER seen House play the piano for another person. He has one in his apartment, and it's clearly important to him, but he never shares it with anyone, not even Wilson. I thought that was really sad. Having a gift for music, and keeping it all to yourself, seems... well, maybe not pointless, but like you're depriving both yourself and the world of something precious.
Anyways. All in all, it was good. I still would have enjoyed seeing an edgier and more drawn-out asylum sequence, but for what it was, they did a good job. My biggest concern now is that House will be too "cured." After all, the entire show after the first couple of minutes isn't about making House sane, it's about making him into a good human being. And good human beings are a wonderful thing to become, but they make for lousy television.
DOLLHOUSE
Boy, did this one ever sneak up past my radar. I hadn't realized that it was starting so soon. First of all: HOORAY! I was half afraid that Fox would change their mind and yank it after all. Secondly: What the hell? (Skip this if you haven't seen the unaired final episode from Season 1.) When I first saw that Season 2, Episode 1 was available, my immediate thought was, "Oh, this will probably just be the unaired episode. I'll just verify that, and then get ready to keep watching next week when they start the real Season 2." Nope! It's a totally new episode - and, it follows the aired finale, not the DVD bombshell.
So, again: what the hell? Mainly, I'm curious if we've gotten a sneak peak into the future continuity of the series, OR if that was intended as a non-canon exercise. If it's the first case, then fine, that works... they can drop in the reboot any time the show gets stuck in a rut and switch over to an awesome new story. The only downside is that it makes things a bit anti-climactic, since we know what's coming; and, if they try to work any of that plot thread into the main story line, we know how helpless they are to prevent it from happening.
If it's not canon, then I just have to say "Boo!" Shame on Whedon for getting my hopes up. But in that case, I'd also have to agree that Fox absolutely did the right thing in deciding not to show the episode, which stunned me at the time.
That aside: I enjoyed the opener. Topher is now solidly my favorite character. It was kinda cool to see a mini BG reunion when Lee and Helo fought. (Those actors must know that they will probably never outgrow those characters - I really hope they're OK with it.) The nested engagement thing was pretty cool... it does seem a little weird and petty that Helo would have used Echo like that to chase down an arms dealer, especially when his own plan obviously causes him so much pain. With Echo's skills, there are plenty of other ways he could have brought him in. That said, what makes sense isn't always what's dramatically satisfying, and I'm glad they did it the way they did.
What else... oh, everything was good. Whiskey coming to terms with her identity, the new head of security settling into his role, even the tiny moments we got with the other Actives.
T-MOBILE
Does anyone have them? What do you think? My contract with AT&T is up, and I'm considering jumping. I've wanted to for a while... T-Mobile has a great reputation for being a reasonable carrier to work with, and I like their plans more than the other carriers'. They also have some phones I'm interested in - originally the Android line, but now I'm salivating at the thought of an N900. I skipped T-Mobile when I was first looking at phones two years ago because at the time they didn't advertise coverage at my apartment; it looks like they've since fixed that, and I'm now able to make calls fine from there.
The main things I'm curious about is how good their 3G network is, and how good their customer service is. Honestly, I don't deal with customer service and hope not to, so I hope that they just set things up nicely and don't make mistakes.
PORTAL
I bought the Orange Box! I see why everyone's so excited about Portal! I think it's possibly the best designed game I've ever played... that's probably overly enthusiastic, so wait until I'm more than a week removed from the amazing finale for a more measured judgment. Still, though: I'm hard pressed to think of another game that's just so tightly constructed, with such a consistently high level of quality. I feel like every single minute that I was playing that game, I was doing something awesome. There was no dumb repetition, no leveling up, no clearing the fourth identical room of bad people. Just relentlessly challenging and varied puzzles, a really subtle and dark side plot that eventually overwhelms the main storyline, and the most amazing villain I've come across for a while.
There's a ton I could write about Portal. Right now I'll confine myself to one thing: the computer is identical to and nothing like SHODAN. Comparing it to SHODAN would be one of the highest compliments possible - SHODAN is in the running for best villain EVER. If you list their qualities, they sound identical: "Insane computer with a female voice encourages a human to progress through a futuristic environment and then seeks to exterminate them." But still, everything about them feels completely different. SHODAN is... like an evil goddess, I guess. She's all-powerful, all-knowing, She is supremely confident in her own superiority, and believes that the insect-like mass of humanity are beneath her notice. GLaDOS, on the other hand, is endlessly quirky. She's a little insecure, while still being supremely powerful. She wants to be trusted, even when she admits that she's fundamentally dishonest yet. ("Have I lied to you yet? I mean, in this room?") She steers you to your doom while speaking words of encouragement. Ultimately, GLaDOS is more insane, or maybe just a different kind of insane... I guess you could simplify a little and say that GLaDOS is psychotic and SHODAN is a psychopath.
Either way, they're both fun! GLaDOS is way funnier. SHODAN is way scarier.
HALF LIFE 2
Did I mention that I got the Orange Box? I'm working my way through HL2 now. It's a great deal of fun. It blows my mind that I was playing Half Life 1 exactly ten years ago. That feels like forever! It's also pretty incredible that HL2 has been out for five years; the graphics still look top-notch, at least to my eyes. (Granted, I hardly ever play FPS games and never have a top-of-the-line graphics card.)
This game is reminding me what I loved so much about HL1. It's an action game, sure, but it has a plot, and it's at least as much about solving puzzles as about shooting big guns. HL2 adds some amazing environments to the mix. Not that HL1 was any slouch in that department - I was blown away at the time by just how huge the game was, and how the vast underground environments were broken up with occasional jaunts to the surface and that final weird coda in Xen - but HL2 takes it to another level. I've already experienced a war-torn Eastern European city, a wonderfully creepy horror-movie-style city filled with pseudo-undead, and a gorgeous seaside road that reminds me of California's coastal Highway 1. I'm in awe of the designers who came up with all this.
OTHER THINGS I'M LOOKING FORWARD TO
Dexter. I was a bit underwhelmed by the third season - still, how could you possibly top the first two? I'll keep the third season in mind this time around and hopefully have my expectations surpassed.
Dragon Age. A Bioware RPG is the only game, other than Civilization, for which I will upgrade my PC. DA is coming out for all platforms, and at first I was thinking I might skip the upgrade and just grab the PS3 version. Then I remembered - oh, yeah, mods! Baldur's Gate 2 is one of the most perfect games I've ever played, and it exceeded perfection thanks to the amazing mods people put out for it. I never really got into NWN - never even beat the main game, and didn't play any expansion, although I hear that the expansions are better. Anyways. I've deliberately been avoiding reading about DA, but now that we're about 6 weeks out, I'm finally letting myself dive into the lore a bit. It looks really promising. I doubt I'll buy it on launch (unless there are REALLY GOOD pre-order specials), but it's the sort of thing where I expect that reviews will be good, and I'll pick it up soon after.
Venture Brothers. For some reason I thought we had to wait until November. But nope, it starts in October! Hooray! Just about three weeks to go. I have a friend who's really into this show, and she's been re-watching them to try and figure out the third season. There's a plot twist at the end which doesn't seem to make much sense. It'll be interesting to see if the creators address this head-on, sweep it under the rug, or pull one of their great switcheroos that changes everything.
That'll do for now, though there's still plenty more to come. Whee!
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