Month: July 2010

StarCraft II

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you probably know that today witnessed the release of StarCraft II, which is probably the most anticipated computer game of the year.  Game stores across the country stayed open late to start selling the game at 12:01 am.  I, on the other hand, downloaded the game from Blizzard.  It took forever, but it was nice not having to rush out to the store.  I did have to wait to get my activation key, but that wasn’t a problem for me.

My initial impression is that SC2 is a very well-put together game.  The graphics are quite well done with lots of little details that make the world seem very realistic.  The single-player campaign is also nicely executed.  The usual static mission briefing has been replaced with something a lot more interactive, which makes the campaign a lot more interesting.  For example, Raynor (the main Terran character) gets money for completing successful missions which he can then use to purchase various upgrades during the time in-between missions.

The gameplay itself is very, very similar to the original StarCraft.  Most of the units are the same, though there are a few new additions.  And while many strategy games have moved away from the old ‘send a bunch of workers to harvest resources’ model, SC2 clings to it with a vengeance.  The end result is that, despite the improved graphics, SC2 has a decided old-school vibe.  I suppose that shouldn’t be surprising.  Given how popular the original was, Blizzard was probably right to not mess with a good thing.

I suppose my biggest complaint with SC2 is that the Zerg and the Protoss are not playable in the single-player campaign.  You can, however, play them in skirmishes against the AI or against other people on Battle.net.  The campaign is focused exclusively on the Terrans who are, quite frankly, my least favorite civilization.  I suspect it’s largely because they all sound like a bunch of outcasts from Hee Haw.  But the campaign is interesting enough to make me tolerate the space rednecks.  For now at least.

SC2 is an eminently playable, well-put together game that’s sure to please fans of the original.  It’s not going to become my favorite game, but that’s largely because of my antipathy toward sci-fi in general rather than any defect in SC2.  If you’re a fan of the original, or a fan of military sci-fi in general, you should probably get this game ASAP.

The Cabinet of Curiosities

As regular readers of my blog know, I’m a fan of Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child’s novels featuring Special Agent Pendergast.  When I got my new iPhone, I decided to test out iBooks by downloading the next book in the series, The Cabinet of Curiosities.

Like Relic and Reliquary, Cabinet is set in New York City, though the Museum of Natural History plays a somewhat reduced role in the story.  While demolishing an old building to make way for a new skyscraper, workers discover a grisly collection of dismembered corpses dating from the 19th century.  The find suggests the work of a serial killer and the crime becomes even more revolting when it seems to inspire the work of a modern copycat who stalks Pendergast and his friends Dr. Nora Kelly and William Smithback.

Although Cabinet was an enjoyable read overall, I didn’t like it as much as Relic or Reliquary.  At times it seemed like the authors were relying too much on the grossout factor of vivid surgical descriptions and the ending of the book was rather unsatisfying.  (SPOILER ALERT: The villain dies almost by accident after handling weapons that were coated in poison.  This poison manages to transform him into a horror film monster with bloody sores, rotting flesh, and a withered eyeball within a matter of minutes.)

Also, William Smithback seemed Too Stupid To Live at some points.  He knows that his girlfriend, Nora Kelly, is in hot water with her bosses at the museum, but his efforts to help her through his journalism only antagonize them even more.  After Relic and Reliquary, Smithback really should have learned that his attempts to help people out through the papers usually don’t work out.  Later on in the book, Smithback finds himself trapped in the killer’s house, largely because he didn’t believe Pendergast’s theory about who committed the crimes.  Granted, the theory was outlandish, but given what Smithback saw in the other books, you’d think he might be a bit less skeptical.

In previous reviews of Pendergast books, I’ve commented that, at times, Pendergast can be something of a Mary Sue.  Preston and Child have made efforts to fix that and the Pendergast of Cabinet isn’t as unbelievably perfect as he was in previous books.

I also find myself coming to dislike Preston and Child’s habit of endlessly shifting the point of view.  Murder victims, policemen, and even the villain himself join the three main characters in sharing their POV with the reader.  It’s just too much and the reader is often left scratching his head wondering why the story is suddenly being told from the point of view of some random cop who will never reappear.

I wouldn’t say that the Pendergast series has jumped the shark yet, but I find myself losing more and more enthusiasm with each passing  book.

OVERALL GRADE: B

The Last Airbender

I’m going to cut to the chase: The Last Airbender is a terrible, terrible movie.  M. Night Shyamalan has taken one of my favorite TV shows of all time and turned it into a plodding, humorless piece of crap that still haunts me more than a week after leaving the theater.

I confess that The Physicist and I did not enter the theater with high expectations.  Almost from the moment we heard about the movie, we had cause to worry.  M. Night Shyamalan doesn’t exactly have a track record of recent box office successes, and we were a bit worried by his decision to condense an entire season’s worth of material into a two hour movie.  Right before we actually saw the movie, we were bombarded with a string of negative reviews. Now I’m not one to pay much attention to the critics, but the sheer unanimity of their condemnation gave me pause.  Now that I’ve seen the movie, I can safely say that the critics were absolutely right.

For starters, unless you’ve already seen the TV show, the plot is going to be pretty much nonsensical.  Actually, I think I’m being generous by using the word ‘plot.’  It’s really more of a series of random vignettes strung together by awkward expository dialog.  I suspect that M. Night Shyamalan had good intentions: he probably wanted to remain as true as possible to the TV series. But, in his quest to shoehorn in as many facts as possible, he resorts to an irritating amount of bland narration, making one wonder if they are watching a movie or listening to a really bad audiobook.

In fairness, the narration isn’t much worse than the rest of the acting.  I don’t know what kind of direction Shyamalan gave the actors, but it seems as if he told everyone to read their lines as if they’d been heavily sedated.  The result is that Aang, who should be a happy-go-lucky kid, seems clinically depressed.  And Sokka, who should be the sarcastic comic relief, spends the whole movie being furrowed and angsty.

The only character whose behavior resembled that of their cartoon counterpart was Prince Zuko.  Dev Patel did a nice job of capturing the character’s testiness without resorting to scenery-chewing.

Even worse, the actors managed to mispronounce characters’ names on a number of occasions.  If you’re a loyal viewer of the series, the result is akin to nails on a chalkboard.

In defense of the actors, even Sir Laurence Olivier would’ve had trouble turning in a decent performance with the sort of insipid dialog that abounds in The Last Airbender. In addition to the bland narration, there are a number of lines that make you laugh for all the wrong reasons (“We need to make them believe that we believe in our beliefs as much as they believe in theirs.”).

But perhaps the biggest travesty of The Last Airbender is that none of the humor that made the series so enjoyable shows up on the silver screen.  It’s like the whole movie is one big Very Special Episode.

The Last Airbender is the first part of a trilogy.  Sadly, Shyamalan is currently on track to write and direct the other two films.  If Nickelodeon has any sense, they’ll replace him.  Otherwise, he’ll have singlehandedly ruined one of their greatest franchises.

FINAL GRADE: F